
* / 0\ H ," It C i ( ( 



v^ 1 1 , \ : i 1/ & 



^ 






MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



ON 



SLAVERY. 



BY WILLIAM JAY 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 

JEWETT, PROCTOR, AND WORTIIINGTON. 

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON AND CO. 

1853. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by JOHN P. JEWETT & CO. 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Tress of Damrell & Moore, 13 Devonshire Street, Boston. 



CONTENTS 



Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the 
American Colonization, and American Anti- 
Slavery Societies, Page 7 

A View of the Action of the Federal Govern- 
ment, IN BEHALF OF SLAVERY, 207 

I 

On the Condition of the Free People of Color 

in the United States, 371 

Address to the Friends of Constitutional Lib- 
erty, on the Violation by the United States 
House of Representatives of the Right of 
Petition, 397 

Introductory Remarks to the Reproof of the 
American Church contained in the recent 
"History of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in America," by the Bishop of Oxford, . . . 409 

A Letter to the Right Rev. L. Silliman Ives, 
Bisnop of the Protestant Church in the 
State of North Carolina, 453 

Address to the Inhabitants of New Mexico and 
California, on the omission by Congress to 
provide them with territorial governments, 
and on the social and political evils of 
Slavery, 491 

Letter to Hon. William Nelson, M. C, on Mr. 

Clay's Compromise, 553 



vi CONTENTS. 

A Letter to the Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, Repre- 
sentative in congress from the clty of bos- 
ton, in reply to his apology for toting for 
the Fugitive Slave Bill, 571 

An Address to the Anti-Slavery Christians of the 
United States. Signed by a number of Cler- 
gymen and others, 621 

Letter to Rev. R. S. Cook, Corresponding Secre- 
tary of the American Tract Society, . . . G41 

Letter to Leavis Tappan, Esq., Treasurer of the 

American Missionary Association, GG1 



INQUIRY 

INTO TBB 

CHARACTER AND TENDENCY 

OP THE 

AMERICAN COLONIZATION, 

AND 

AMERICAN ANTI- SLA VERY 

SOCIETIES. 



Give rue the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely, according to my conscience, 
above all liberties.''— Milton. 



PREFACE 



No allusion has been made in the following pages to certain popular 
objections to the Colonization Society ; nor have any cases of individ- 
ual cruelty been cited, to illustrate the evils of slavery. It is proper 
that the reasons for this departure from the ordinary mode of discussing 
these two subjects should be given, that they may not be misunder- 
stood. 

The objections I have omitted to notice, are, the mortality to which 
the emigrants are exposed in consecptence of the climate of Liberia ; 
the demoralizing traffic which the colonists have carried on with the 
natives, in rum and military stores ; and the improvident application 
of the funds of the Society, which has rendered it bankrupt. 

These objections, serious as they are in themselves, are not insepara- 
ble from the system of Colonization. Another, and more salubrious 
site, may be selected ; the traffic complained of, may be discontinued ; 
and the fiscal affairs of the Society may be managed with prudence and 
economy. But there are inherent evils in the system, and it is impor- 
tant that the public attention should not be diverted from these evils, 
by the contemplation of others which are only accidental. 

So, also, it is important, that the sinfulness of slavery should not be 
merged in that of its unauthorized abuses. Many contend for the 
lawfulness of slavery who readily admit the sinfulness of insulated eases 
of cruelty. It has, therefore, been my object to show that, admitting 
the slaves to be treated as a prudent farmer treats his cattle, — that they 
have enough to eat, are sheltered from the inclemency of the weather, 
and are not subjected to a greater degree of severity than is necessary 
to extort from them a due amount of labor, — American slavery is, 
nevertheless, a heinous sin, and, like every other sin, ought to be 
immediately abandoned. 

February, 1835 



PART I. 

AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Ox the 1st of January, 1835, there were in the United States, 
2,245,144 slaves* This* number about equals the population of 
Holland, and exceeds that of Scotland, of the Danish Dominions, of the 
Swiss Confederation, and of various Republics in South America. 
These millions of human beings are held as chattels by a people pro- 
fessing to acknowledge, that " all men are created equal, and endowed 
with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness : " they are, moreover, kept in ignorance, and 
compelled to live without God, and to die without hope, by a people 
professing to reverence the obligations of Christianity. _ 

But slavery has ceased in other countries, where it formerly pre- 
vailed ; and may we not hope that it is gradually expiring in this ? 
Such a hope is, alas, forbidden by the following statement of our slave 
population, at different periods: 

1835, 2,245,144 
1830, 165,350 

" 182,953 

" 109,631 

" 24,990 

Perhaps, however, the political evils of slavery may be gradually 
mitigated, and finally removed, by an increasing preponderance in the 
white population. Unfortunately, we are compelled by facts to antici- 
pate a very different result. A comparison of the census of 1830, with 

* According to the ratio of increase between 1820 and 1830. 



United States, 


1790, 


697,697 


Kentucky, 


u 


12,430 


Mississippi and ") 
Alabama, ) 


1800, 


3,489 


Louisiana, 


1810, 


34,660 


Missouri, 


« 


3,011 





Free. 


North Carolina, 


13.4 per et 


South Carolina, 


8.7 


Alabama, 


124 


Mississippi, 


66.8 


Missouri, 


104.3 


Louisiana, 


25.6 


Tennessee, 


59.5 


Kentucky, 


19.6 


Arkansas Territory, 


104.3 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

that of 1820, affords us the following ratio of increase in the free and 
slave population, for the intermediate ten years : 

Slave. 

20.2 per et. 

22.1 

180.4 

100.1 

144.7 

58.7 

77.7 

30.4 

180 

It is obvious, from these details, that, if the present system be con- 
tinued, the time cannot be far distant, when the slaves will possess a 
frightful numerical superiority over their masters. Already do they 
bear to the whites, in the slave States and Territories, the proportion 
of 1 to 2.79. In South Carolina and Louisiana, they are now a ma- 
jority. 

But in our contemplation of slaver)', the sufferings of the slaves 
claim our consideration, no less than the dangers to which the whites 
are exposed. The ordinary evils of slavery, are, in this country, 
greatly aggravated by a cruel and extensive slave-trade. Various 
circumstances have, of late years, combined to lessen the demand for 
slave-labor in the more northern, and to increase it in the more south- 
ern and western portions of the slave-region ; while the enlarged 
consumption of sugar and cotton is enhancing the market value of 
slaves. The most profitable employment of this species of labor, is 
unfortunately found in those States, which, from their recent settle- 
ment, possess immense tracts which are still to be brought into cultiva- 
tion, and in which, consequently, there now is, and will long continue 
to be, an urgent demand for slaves. Hence has arisen a prodigious 
and annually increasing transportation of slaves to the south and west. 

There are no official data from which the amount of this transporta- 
tion can be ascertained ; but from facts that have transpired, and from 
estimates made at the SoutJi, there is reason to believe that it exceeds 
thirty thousand a year. One of the peculiar abominations of this trade, 
is, that its victims are almost exclusively children and youths. Instead 
of removing whole families and gangs of negroes, the dealers for the 
most part, according to their own advertisements, select individuals, 
" of both sexes, from twelve to twenty-five years." 

He surely can have little claim to the character of a patriot or 
a Christian, who does not desire that his country may be delivered 
from the sin and curse of slavery ; or who refuses even to consider the 
means proposed for effecting this great object. 

A powerful institution is now in operation, which professes to be, not 
merely a remedy for slavery, but the oxly remedy that can be 
devised. It appeals to religion and patriotism, for those pecuniary 
aids, which, it contends, are alone wanting, to enable it to transport our 
whole colored population to Africa, there to enjoy the freedom denied 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

to them here ; and there to become the dispensers of religion, and the 
arts and sciences, to that benighted continent. 

If the claims of the American Colonization Society are founded in 
truth, they cannot be resisted without guilt. Very many, however, 
who are alike distinguished for piety and talents, instead of allowing 
these claims, strenuously maintain, that the practical tendency of the 
Society, is to perpetuate the evils it professes to remove ; and to extend 
to Africa, the vices, but not the blessings of civilization. These con- 
flicting opinions, on a subject so momentous, demand a calm and 
patient investigation ; since he who either supports or opposes the 
Colonization Society, without first ascertaining its true character, the 
results it has produced, and the influence it exerts, incurs the hazard, 
as far as his example and efforts extend, of increasing the wretchedness 
he would relieve, and of fastening upon his country, the burden under 
which she is struggling. 

If, in a question involving the temporal and eternal happiness of 
unborn millions, we could satisfy our consciences by bowing to the 
authority of great names, we should still be painfully embarrassed in 
selecting those, to whose decision wc should surrender our own judg- 
ments. The excellent of the earth are to be found among the friends 
and enemies of this association ; and if various ecclesiastical bodies in 
our own country, have recommended it to the patronage of their 
churches, it is regarded with abhorrence by almost the whole religious 
community of Great Britain ; and the last effort made by "Wilber- 
force in the great cause of negro liberty, was, to address to the people 
of Great Britain his solemn protest against the doctrines and conduct of 
the American Colonization Society. 

This Institution may have been formed by good men, and from the 
purest motives, yet it is possible that its operation may not have been 
such as they anticipated. " So many unforseen, concealed, and inap- 
preciable causes," says a very eminent writer, " have an influence on 
human institutions, that it is impossible to judge a priori of their 
effects. Nothing but a long series of experiments can unfold these 
effects, and point out the means of counteracting those that are hurtful." 

The following inquiry has been commenced, and pursued under a 
deep sense of the importance of the subject, and with a solemn recol- 
lection, that no deviation from truth can escape the notice and dis- 
pleasure of Him, unto whom all hearts are open, and from whom no 
secrets are hid. 



CHAPTER I. 

ORIGIN, CONSTITUTION, AND CHARACTER OP THE AMERICAN 
COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 

On the 23d of December, 1816, the Legislature of Virginia 
passed a resolution requesting the Governor to correspond with 
the President of the United States, " for the purpose of obtaining 
a territory on the coast of Africa, or at some other place not 
within any of the States, or territorial governments of the United 
States, to sei-ve as an asylum for such persons of color as are 
now free, and may desire the same, and for those who may 
hereafter be emancipated within this Commonwealth." 

Within a few days of the date of this resolution, a meeting 
was held at "Washington to take this very subject into consider- 
ation. It was composed almost entirely of southern gentlemen. 
Judge Washington presided: Mr. Clay, Mr. Randolph, and 
others, took part in the discussions which ensued, and which 
resulted in the organization of the American Colonization 
Society. Judge "Washington was chosen President, and of the 
seventeen Vice Presidents, only five were selected from the free 
States,. while the twelve managers were, it is believed, without 
one exception, slave-holders. 

The first two articles of the constitution are the only ones 
relating to the object of the Society. They are as follows : 

Art I. This Society shall be called the American Society for col- 
onizing the free people of color of the United States. 

Art. II. The object to which its attention is to be exclusively di- 
rected, is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing (with their 



16 jay's works. 

consent) the free people of color residing in our country, in Africa, or 
such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient. And the 
Society shall act to effect this object in cooperation with the general 
government and such of the States as may adopt regulations on the 
subject. 

It is worthy of remark, that this constitution has no preamble 
setting forth the motives which led to its adoption, and the 
sentiments entertained by its authors. There is no one single 
principle of duty or policy recognized in it, and the members 
may, without inconsistency, be Christians or infidels ; they may 
be the friends or enemies of slavery, and may be actuated by 
kindness or by hatred towards " the free people of color." 

The omission of all avowal of motives was, probably, not 
without design, and has not been without effect. It has secured 
the cooperation of three distinct classes. First, such as sincerely 
desire to afford the free blacks an asylum from the oppression 
they suffer here, and by their means to extend to Africa the 
blessings of Christianity and civilization, and who at the same 
time flatter themselves that colonization will have a salutary 
influence in accelerating the abolition of slavery : secondly, such 
as expect to enhance the value and security of slave property, 
by removing the free blacks : and, thirdly, such as seek relief 
from a bad population, without -the trouble and expense of 
improving it. 

The doors of the Society being thrown open to all, a hetero- 
geneous multitude has entered, and within its portals men are 
brought into contact, who in the ordinary walks of life, are 
separated by a common repulsion. The devoted missionary, 
ready to pour out his life on the sands of Africa, is jostled by 
the trafficker in human flesh ; the humble, self-denying Christian, 
listens to the praises of the Society from the unblushing profli- 
gate ; and the friend of human rights and human happiness 
greets as his fellow-laborer the man whose very contribution to 
the cause is extorted from the unrequited labor of his fellow-men. 
This anomalous amalgamation of characters and motives, has 
necessarily led to a lamentable compromise of principle. What- 
ever may be the object each member proposes to himself, he is 
conscious it can be effected only by the harmonious cooperation 
of all the other members. Hence it is all important to avoid 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 17 

giving and taking offence ; and never was the maxim, "bear and 
forbear," more scrupulously obeyed. Certain irreconcilable 
opinions, but regarded by tlieir holders as fundamental, are, by 
common consent, wholly suppressed ; while in matters of less 
importance, the expression of opposite sentiments is freely 
allowed, and borne with commendable patience. 

The advocates of slavery forbear shocking its opponents by 
justifying it in the abstract, and in return for this complaisance, 
those opponents forbear condemning it in particulars. Each 
party consents to make certain concessions to conciliate the 
other. The Southron admits slavery to be a political evil ; the 
northern member courteously replies, that under present circum- 
stances, it is unavoidable, and therefore justifiable. The actual 
condition of the slave, his mental bondage, his bodily sufferings, 
are understood to be forbidden topics. 

The oppressor of the free negro dwells on his depravity and 
degradation ; the friend of the free negro admits, and often 
aggravates the charges against him, but carefully abstains from 
all allusion to the true causes of that depravity and degradation, 
unless to excuse them as being inevitable. Both parties unite 
in depicting hi glowing colors, the effects of the oppression of the 
free negro, in order to prove the humanity of banishing him from 
the country ; while both refrain from all attempts to remove or 
lessen the oppression. 

The simplicity of the object of the Society as stated in its 
constitution, tends in a powerful degree to encourage and enforce 
this compromise of principle. The constitution, in fact, vests a 
discretionary veto in every member on the expression of unpal- 
atable opinions. The attention of the Society is to be " exclu- 
sively " directed to the colonization of persons of color, and the 
constitution contains no allusion to slavery. Hence any denun- 
ciation of slavery as sinful,* any arguments addressed to slave 



* Candor requires the admission that there is at least one exception to this 
remark. _ At the annual meeting of the Society in 1834, the Rev. Mr. Breck- 
enridge,in his speech, insisted on the sinfulness of slavery. A distinguished 
lay member of the Society, who was present, complained to the author of Mr. 
B.'s unconstitutional conduct, and declared that he was strongly tempted 
publicly to call him to order. 



18 jay's works. 

holders to induce them to manumit their slaves, would be uncon- 
stitutional, and are therefore carefully avoided. But the free 
blacks cannot be transported without money, and much money 
cannot be had, without the aid of the enemies of slavery. It is 
therefore permitted to represent the Society as an antidote to 
slavery, as tending to effect its abolition, anything in the consti- 
tution to the contrary notwithstanding. But then this abolition is 
to be brought about at some future indefinite period. True it is, 
that the constitution is as silent, with respect to manumission, as 
it is to slavery ; but by common consent, this silence is not 
permitted to interpose the slightest obstacle to a unanimous, 
vigorous, and persevering opposition to present manumission. 
Were the American Bible Society to deprecate the emancipation 
of slaves, and to censure all who proposed it, the outrage would 
excite the indignation of the whole community. But what would 
be a perversion of its avowed object in a Bible Society, is per- 
fectly lawful in a Colonization Society, not because it is author- 
ized by the constitution, but because it is expedient to conciliate 
the slave-holders. 

Many of the supporters of the Society are interested in the 
American slave-trade* — a trade replete with cruelty and 
injustice. To condemn this trade, or to labor for its suppression, 
would be unconstitutional. The African slave-trade rather 
interferes with, than promotes the interests of the slave-owners, 
and the Society deems it unnecessary to seek for any constitu- 
tional warrant to justify the most violent denunciation of the 
foreign traffic ; or an application to foreign powers to declare it 
piratical, t 

To hold up the free blacks to the detestation of the community, 
is unconstitutional ; to recommend them to the sympathy of 
Christians, to propose schools for their instruction, plans for 
encouraging their industry, and efforts for their moral and 
religious improvement, would be such a flagrant departure from 
the "exclusive" object of the Society, that no member has 

* The first President of the Society, was, as we shall see hereafter, no 
inconsiderable dealer. 

fSee proceedings of Am. Col. Society of 20th January, 1827. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 19 

hitherto been rash enough to make the attempt. At the same 
time it is quite constitutional to vindicate the cruel laws which are 
crushing these people in the dust, and to show that the oppres- 
sion they suffer is " an ordination of Providence." 

The constitution indeed forbids the transportation of the free 
blacks without " their consent ; " but it is very constitutional to 
justify and encourage such oppression of them, as shall compel 
them to seek in the wilds of Africa, a refuge from American 
cruelty. 

The natural result of this compromise of principle, this sup- 
pression of truth, this sacrifice to unanimity, has been the 
adoption of expediency as the standard of right and wrong, in 
the place of the revealed will of God. Unmindful of the poet's 
precept, 

Be virtuous ends pursued by virtuous means, ' 
Nor think the intention sanctifies the deed, 

good men and good Christians have been tempted by their zeal 
for the Society, to countenance opinions and practices incon- 
sistent with justice and humanity. Confident that their motives 
were good and their object important, they have been too little 
scrupulous of the means they employed ; and hence the Society 
has actually exerted a demoralizing influence over its own mem- 
bers, by leading them occasionally to advance in its behalf 
opinions at variance with truth and Christianity. Unhappily 
the evil influence of the Society has not been confined to its own 
members. It has, to a lamentable extent, vitiated the moral 
sense of the community, by reconciling public opinion to the 
continuance of slavery, and by aggravating those sinful pre- 
judices against the free blacks, which are subjecting them to 
insult and persecution, and denying them the blessings of edu- 
cation and religious instruction. 

"We are sensible that these are grave assertions, and that 
many will deem them very extraordinary ones. The reader's 
belief is not solicited for them at present, nor will it be for any 
assertion hereafter made, till supported by unquestionable 
evidence. The remarks in this chapter are intended only as a 
general statement of the case against the Society, and as an 



20 jay's works. 

explanation of the process by which many excellent men 
belonging to it, have insensibly been seduced into conduct of at 
least doubtful morality. The charges now made will in due 
time be -substantiated by authentic facts, and by quotations from 
the language, both official and private, of members of the 
Society. 

True it is, that colonizationists protest most earnestly against 
being judged by any but the official language of the Board of 
Managers. To the justice of this protest it is impossible to 
assent. The Society is arraigned at the bar of the public, not 
for the object avowed in the constitution, but for the influence it 
exerts in vindicating and prolonging slavery, and in augment- 
ing the oppression of the free blacks. This influence, if exerted 
at all, must be exerted by individuals in the capacity of mem- 
bers, agents, and officers of the Society, and the only means 
they possess of exerting this influence, is by the expression of 
their sentiments. To insist, therefore, that these sentiments 
may not be quoted, to show what influence the Society does 
exert, is to contradict the plainest suggestions of common sense. 
Certainly the whole Society is not necessarily responsible for 
the sentiments of a single member ; but the question is not, 
whether one or two or more members have said improper things, 
but whether the influence generally exerted by the Society, is 
what it is alleged to be ; and this is a question of fact, to be 
decided by evidence, and that evidence necessarily consists of 
the opinions expressed by its officers, agents, and distinguished 
members, and auxiliary associations. 

This protest, moreover, comes with an ill grace from a Society 
that has appealed to the letters and the speeches of its members, 
to repel the objection urged against it in certain quarters, of a 
desire to interfere with the rights of slave-holders.* Should 
the members and officers of an Anti-Slavery Society, continually, 
at its public meetings, deliver addresses in favor of intermar- 
riages between whites and blacks — should auxiliaries pass 
resolutions approving of such marriages — should these addresses 

* See Afr. Rep., YI, 198. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 21 

and resolutions be published and circulated at the expense of 
the Society, and should its official magazine recommend such 
marriages, — would it not be the excess of disingenuousness for 
the Society to attempt to repel the charge that its influence was 
exerted to bring about an amalgamation of the two races, by 
denying that it was responsible for the language of its members, 
and by appealing to its constitution and official reports, in which 
no allusion was made to the subject? All that can fairly be 
demanded, is that the quotations be honestly made, and that they 
be sufficiently numerous and explicit to establish the facts they 
are brought to prove. It must not, however, be supposed, that 
we intend to prove our charges against the Society, only by the 
declarations of individual members. On the contrary, w T e shall 
summon as witnesses, the Managers of the parent Society, 
and its auxiliaries ; and shall exhibit in evidence their official 
reports and addresses. In the following pages will be found 
numerous extracts from colonization documents ; and it is right 
to observe, that they are for the most part merely selections, and 
bearing generally but a small proportion to the whole number 
of extracts to the same point, that might have been adduced. 
Some few of the extracts have been made by other writers ; but 
the great mass of them have been selected by the author, and 
in no instance has he given a quotation which he does not believe 
is fairly and honestly made. To prevent mistakes, it may be 
well to mention, that the African Eepository is a monthly maga- 
zine, and is, as appears from the title-page, " published by order 
of the Managers of the American Colonization Society." The 
Editor is understood to be the Secretary of the Society. This 
periodical, together with the annual reports, and occasional 
official addresses, is the only publication for which the man- 
agers of the Society are responsible ; when colonization news- 
papers are mentioned, nothing more is intended by the expres- 
sion, than that they are papers which espouse the cause of the 
Society. 



22 jay's WORKS 



CHAPTER II. 

INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIETY ON THE CONDITION OF FREE 
FEESONS OF COLOR. 

The object of the Society is declared by the constitution, to 
be exclusively the colonization of free persons of color, with 
their own consent. Now there is nothing in this object neces- 
sarily benevolent. A colony may be established for commercial 
purposes, or as a military station, or as a receptacle for convicts, 
or to aid the diffusion of Christianity. The absence in the 
constitution of all avowed motive for the proposed colony, 
invites the cooperation of all who advocate the scheme from 
any motive whatever. For the purpose of raising money, it is 
the policy of the Society to appeal to all the various and 
discordant motives that can be incited in behalf of the colony. 
A strong and very general prejudice exists against the free 
blacks. It is unfortunately the policy of the Society to aggra- 
vate this prejudice, since the more we abominate these people, 
the more willing we shall be to pay money for the purpose of 
getting rid of them. The influence of the doctrine of expedi- 
ency on good men, will be seen hi the unchristian language they 
have used in regard to this unhappy and oppressed portion of 
their fellow-men. 

" Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves." 
Address of C. C. Harper, Afr. Rep., II, 189. 

" A horde of miserable people — the objects of universal suspicion — 
subsisting by plunder." Speech of Gen. Mercer, Vice President. 

•• Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free 
colored — contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all 
ai-ound them." Speech of Mr. Clay, Vice President, 12th Report, p. 21. 

" Averse to labor, with no incentives to industry, or motives to res] >ect, 
they maintain a precarious existence by petty thefts and plunder." 
African Rep., VI, 135. 

" They are alike injurious by their conduct and example to all other 
classes of society." Memorial of Manchester Col. Soc. to Virginia 
Legislature. 

" A large mass of human beings who hang as a vile excrescence upon 
society." Address of C. L. Mosby, before a Col. Soc. in Virginia. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 23 

•• This class of persons a curse and contagion wherever they 
reside." African Rep., Ill, 203. 

" Of all the descriptions of our population, and of either portion of 
the African race, the free persons of color are by far, as a class, the 
most corrupt, depraved and abandoned." Speech of Mr. Clay, African 
Rep., VI, 12. 

" An anomalous race of beings, the most depraved upon earth." 
African Rep., VII, 230. 

" They are a mildew upon our fields, a scourge to our backs, and a 
stain upon our escutcheon." Memorial of Kentucky Col. Soc. to Con- 
gress. 

" I will look no farther when I seek for the most degraded, the most 
abandoned race on the earth, but rest my eye on this people." Address 
before the Lynchburg Col. Society. 

" There is a class (free blacks) among us, introduced by violence, 
notoriously ignorant, degraded and miserable, mentally diseased, 
broken-spirited, acted upon by no motives to honorable exertions, 
scarcely reached in their debasement by the heavenly light." Edi- 
torial Article, Afr. Rep., I, GS. 

We may here remark, that the tone of these extracts is very 
different from that used when the speaker desires to excite 
sympathy for the wretched. We are told that these people are 
vicious and debased, but no hint is given that their vice and 
debasement are the result of sinful prejudices and cruel laws. 
No appeal is made to the spirit of Christianity to pour oil and 
wine into the wound of suffering humanity. We are not re- 
minded that these wretches are our brethren, for whom Christ 
died. Nothing is omitted to impress us with a sense of the 
depth of the misery into which they are plunged ; but for what 
object are these frightful pictures presented to us ? Is it to urge 
us to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to instruct the 
ignorant, and to reform the wicked ? No, but to transport them 
to Africa ! 

To an unsophisticated Christian it would seem that the true 
way of relieving the wretchedness and vice of these people 
would be, first to protest against their unrighteous oppression, 
and to procure the repeal of those laws which forbid their 
instruction ; and then to make them partakers of the blessings of 
education and religion. But far from the Colonization Society 
are all such old-fashioned ways of doing good. Instead of pro- 



24 jay's works. 

testing against the causes of all this misery, the Society ex- 
cuses AND JUSTIFIES THE OrFRESSION OF THE FREE NEGROES, 
AND THE PREJUDICES AGAINST THEM. 

" Severe necessity places them (free negroes) in a class of 
degraded beings." Address of Mr. Eives to Lynchburg Col. Soc, Afr. 
Rep., V, 238. 

"The severe legislation, — I willnotsay that under all circumstances it 
is too severe, — the severe legislation of the slave States, which drives 
their emancipated blacks to the free States, and scatters the nuisance 
there, attests that we have a share in this evil." Speech of G. Smith, 
Esq., Vice President, 14th Report, p. xiii. 

" This law," (a law by which a manumitted negro becomes again a 
slave if he remains twelve months in the State,) " odious and unjust as it 
may at first view appear, and hard as it may seem to bear upon the liber- 
ated negro, was doubtless dictated by sound policy, and its repeal Avould 
be regarded by none with more unfeigned regret than by the friends 
of African Colonization. It has restrained many masters from giving 
freedom to their slaves, and has thereby contributed to check the growth 
of an evil already too great and formidable." Memorial from Poichat- 
tan Col. Soc. to Virginia Legislature. 

" I am clear, that whether we consider it with reference to the 
welfare of the State, or the happiness of the blacks, it were better to 
have them left in chains, than to have liberated them to receive such 
freedom as they enjov, and greater freedom we cannot, must not allow 
them." Afr. Rep., Ill, 197. 

" The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society, prejudices 
which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, nor religion 
itself can subdue, mark the people of color, whether bond or free, 
as the subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable." Address of 
the Connecticut Col. Soc. 

" The managers consider it clear that causes exist and are now 
operating to prevent their improvement and elevation to any consider- 
able extent as a class in this country, which are fixed not only beyond the 
control of the friends of humanity, but of any human power; Chris- 
tianity can not do for them here what it will do for them in Africa. 
This is not the fault of the colored man, nor of the white man, but 
an ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than 
the laws of nature." loth Rep., p. 47. 

" We do not ask that the provisions of our constitution and statute 
book should be so modified as to relieve and exalt the condition of the 
colored people whilst they remain with us. Let these provisions stand 
in all their rigor to work out the ultimate and unbounded good 
of these people." Memorial of the New York State Col. Soc. to the 
Legislature. 

"If we were constrained to admire so uncommon a being," (a pious, 
highly cultivated, scientific negro,) " our very admiration would be 
mingled with disgust, because in the physical organization of his frame 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 25 

we meet an insurmountable barrier even to approach to social inter- 
course, and in the Egyptian color which nature has stamped on his 
features, a principle of repulsion so strong as to forbid the idea of a 
communion, either of interest, or of feeling, as utterly abhorrent." 
Afr. Rep., VII, p. 331. 

We find from the foregoing extracts that the Board of Man- 
agers of the American Colonization Society officially declare, 
that no human power can counteract the causes which prevent 
the elevation and improvement of the free black in this country. 
That not even the religion of Christ can in this land of light, of 
Bibles, and of temples, do for him what it can amid the darkness 
and paganism of Africa. And w T e find a powerful State Society 
recommending to the Legislature to do evil that good may come. 
Now if it be true, that the degradation of the free blacks is 
inevitable, and cannot even be removed by Christianity, then, 
indeed, as the Society affirms, it is not the " fault " of the white 
man, and he not being in fault, there is no reason why he 
should change his conduct towards them or repeal those laws 
which Mr Smith will not say are under all circumstances " too 
severe." Let us see what are these laws, which a most worthy 
colonizationist and a distinguished officer of the Society inti- 
mates are not too severe ; and what are those causes of degra- 
dation which we are assured by the Board of Managers are an 
ordination of Providence, and no more to be changed than the 
laws of nature. 

In some of the States, if a free man of color is accused of 
crime, he is denied the benefit of those forms of trial which the 
Common Law has established for the protection of innocence. 
Thus in South Carolina it is thought epiite unnecessary to give 
a Grand and Petit Jury the trouble of inquiring into his case ; 
he can be hung without so much ceremony. But who is a colored 
man ? We answer, the fairest man in Carolina, if it can be proved, 
that a drop of negro blood 'flowed in the veins of his mother. The 
following extract from a late Charleston paper gives us a 
curious instance of the administration of criminal justice in a 
Christian country in the nineteenth century: 

"Trial for Murder. — William Tann, a free colored man, was 
tried on Friday last, at John's Island, for the murder of Moses, the 
3* 



26 jay's works. 

slave of Jos. 1). Jenkins, Esq., of that place. The Court consisted of 
AVilliam H. Inglesby and Alexander H. Brown, Esqrs., Judicial Magis- 
trates," (Justices of the Peace,) "of this city, together with Jive free- 
holders. The murder was committed at John's Island on the 4th July, 
1832, Tann shooting down Moses with a musket loaded with buckshot. 
Tann was at that time overseer of a Mr. Murray, and from the fairness 
of his complexion was thought to be and passed for a WHITE MAN. 
lie was accordingly bound over to answer for this offence to the 
Court of Sessions, but it having been decided on an issue ordered 
and tried at Walterborough, for the purpose of ascertaining his caste, 
that he was of mixed blood, he was turned over by the Court, to the 
jurisdiction of Magistrates and Freeholders. The Court found him 
guilty, and sentenced him to be hung on Friday, the 24th April, next," 
1835. — Charleston Courier. 

In South Carolina, if a free negro " entertains " a runaway 
slave, he forfeits ten pounds, and if unable to pay the fine, which 
must be the case ninety-nine times in a hundred, he is to be sold 
as a slave for life. In 1827, a free woman and her three children 
were thus sold, for harboring two slave children. 

In Mississippi, every negro or mulatto, not being able to prove 
himself free, may be sold as a slave. Should the certificate of 
his manumission, or the evidence of his parent's freedom, be 
lost or stolen, he is reduced to hopeless bondage. This provision 
extends to most of the slave States, and is in full operation in the 
District of Columbia. 

In South Carolina, any assembly of free negroes, even in the 
presence of white persons, " in a confined or secret place, for the 
purpose of mental instruction" is an unlawful assembly, and may 
be dispersed by a magistrate, who is authorized to inflict twenty 
lashes on each free negro attending the meeting. 

In the city of Savannah, any person Avho teaches a free negro 
to read or write, incurs a penalty of thirty dollars. Of course, a 
father may not instruct his own children. 

In Maryland, a Justice of the Peace may order a free negro's 
ears to be cut off for striking a white man. In Kentucky, for 
the same offence, he is to receive thirty lashes, " well laid on." 
The law of Louisiana declares, " Free people of color ought 
never to insult or strike white people, nor presume to conceive 
themselves equal to the whites ; but, on the contrary, they ought 
to yield to them on every occasion, and never speak or answer 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 27 

them but with respect, under the penalty of imprisonment, 
according to the nature of the case." 

The corporation of Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, 
passed an ordinance, making it penal for any free negro to 
receive from the post-office, have in his possession, or circulate, 
any publication or writing whatsoever of a seditious character. 

In North Carolina, the law prohibits a free colored man, 
whatever may be his attainments or ecclesiastical authority, to 
preach the gospel. 

In Georgia, a white man is liable to a fine of jive hundred 
dollars for teaching a free negro to read or write. If one free 
negro teach another, he is to be fined and whipped at the dis- 
cretion of the court ! Should a free negro presume to preach 
to, or exhort his companions, he may be seized without warrant, 
and whipped thirty-nine lashes, and the same number of lashes 
may be applied to each one of his congregation. 

In Virginia, should free negroes or their children assemble 
at a school to learn reading and writing, any Justice of the 
Peace may dismiss the school with twenty stripes on the back of 
each pupil. 

In some States, free negroes may not assemble together for 
any purpose, to a greater number than seven. In North Caro- 
lina, free negroes may not trade, buy, or sell, out of the cities or 
towns in which they reside, under the penalty of forfeiting their 
goods, and receiving, in lieu thereof, thirty-nine lashes. 

The laws of Ohio against the free blacks are peculiarly de- 
testable, because not originating from the fears and prejudices 
of slave-holders. Not only are the blacks excluded in that 
State from the benefit of public schools, but with a refinement of 
cruelty unparelleled, they are doomed to idleness and poverty, 
by a law which renders a white man who employs a colored one 
to labor for him one hour, liable for his support through life ! 

By a late law of Maryland, a free negro coming into the 
State is liable to a fine of fifty dollars for every week he re- 
mains in it. If he cannot pay the fine, he is sold. 

In Louisiana, the penalty for instructing a free black in a 
Sunday School, is, for the first offence, five hundred dollars; for 
the second offence, death ! 



28 jay's works. 

Such, in a greater or less degree, is the situation of three 
hundred thousand of our fellow-citizens ; and the only comfort, 
the only consolation, the only mitigation of their sufferings, 
which a Society, said to he " full of benevolence and the hallowed 
impulses of Heaven's own mercy," proposes, or even wishes for 
them, is their transportation to Africa ! 

Is this a harsh assertion ? Let us attend to the proofs that 
the Society discourages all attempts to improve the 
condition of tiie free blacks. 

We have already seen that the managers of the American 
Colonization Society officially declare, that, in their opinion, no 
human power can remove the causes which prevent the im- 
provement and elevation of the free negroes to any considerable 
extent in this country; and that the New York Society, in 
addressing the Legislature, expresses their desire, that the pro- 
visions in the constitution and statute book of that State, relative 
to the blacks, may " stand in all their rigor." The provision in 
the constitution here alluded to, is that recent one, which, by 
requiring a freehold qualification, virtually deprived the blacks 
of the elective franchise, which the fathers of the Revolution had 
given them. In the Convention by which the new constitution 
was formed, many of the most distinguished citizens and able 
lawyers, including Rufus King and Chancellor Kent, had pro- 
tested against this proscription as unjust and anti-republican ; 
but the Colonization Society declare to the Legislature, without 
whose consent this provision cannot be changed, that they wish it 
to stand in all its rigor. Not contented with giving their sanc- 
tion to past acts of injustice, the Society use their influence with the 
Legislature to prevent its benevolent operation in future. Their 
Memorial proceeds: — " Persuaded that their condition here is 
not susceptible of a radical and permanent improvement, we 
would deprecate any legislation that should encourage the vain 
and injurious hope of it." 

The Connecticut Colonization Society, in its address already 
quoted, denies that even "religion itself" can subdue the preju- 
dices existing against these people. The same address author- 
itatively decides, that the free blacks " constitute a class by 
themselves, a class out of which no individual can be elevated." 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 29 

The Kentucky State Colonization Society, in its official 
address, says : 

" It is against this increase of colored persons, who take but a nom- 
inal freedom, and cannot rise from their degraded condition, that this 
Society attempts to provide." Afr. Rep., VI, 82. 

" The people of color must, in this country, remain for ages, probably 
forever, a separate and distinct caste, weighed down by causes power- 
ful, universal, invincible, which neither legislation NOR Christianity 
can remove." Afr. Rep., Edit. Art., VII, 196. 

" We have endeavored, but in vain, to restore them (the free 
negroes) either to self-respect, or to the respect of others. It is not 
our fault that we have failed. It is not theirs. It has resulted from a 
cause over which neither we nor they can ever have control." Speech 
of Rev. Dr. Nott before N. York Col. Soc. 

This last extract claims attention from the extraordinary 
assertions which it contains, and from the high character of the 
author. No explanations are given of the vain endeavors which 
have been made to restore the blacks either to self-respect, or 
to the respect of others. When, where, by whom, and how- 
were these efforts made ? Dr. Nott is addressing the State 
Society, and speaks in the plural number. We confess we see 
nothing like such efforts in the Memorial of that Society to the 
Legislature. It is moreover to be recollected, that the American 
Society, in its address to its auxiliaries, warns them against such 
efforts. 

" The moral, intellectual, and political improvement of people of 
color within the United States, are objects foreign to the powers of this 
Society." Address of the Am. Col. Soc. to its auxiliaries. Afr. Rep., 
VII, 291. 

Let us see also what two religious colonization papers say on 
this subject. 

" If the free people of color were generally taught to read, it might 
be an inducement to them to remain in this country ; we would offer 
them no such inducements." Southern Religious Telegraph, Febru- 
ary, 19, 1831. 

" It must appear evident to all, that every endeavor to divert the 
attention of the community, or even a portion of the means which the 
present crisis so imperatively calls for, from the Colonization Society, to 
measures calculated to bind* the colored population to this country, and 
seeking to raise them to a level with the whites, whether by founding 
colleges, or in any other way, tends directly in the proportion that it 
succeeds, to counteract and thicart the whole plan of colonization." JS'ew 
Haven Religious Intelligencer, July, 1831. 



30 jay's works. 

We perceive from these extracts, that the improvement of the 
free blacks is represented by colonizationists as impossible, and 
of course it is folly to attempt what is impracticable. The very 
attempt, moreover, is calculated to counteract and thwart the 
whole plan of colonization, as far as it succeeds. But this is 
not all. Some might think the obligations of Christianity 
required us to instruct the ignorant, and to succor the oppressed. 
To remove this prejudice, we are assured that even Christianity 
cannot help the negro in America ! When before, has the power 
of our blessed religion in changing the heart, subduing evil 
affections, and removing unholy prejudices, been questioned by 
professing Christians ? 

The influence of the gospel of Christ, has led thousands and 
tens of thousands to offer themselves as willing victims at the 
stake or in the amphitheatre — it has prostrated the temples, the 
altars, and the gods of paganism — it has triumphed over 
ancient and endeared superstitions — it has delivered the Hindoo 
from the fetters of caste, and tamed the North American savage ; 
and yet according to colonizationists, it is utterly impotent, 
when brought into collision with the prejudices of American 
Christians, towards an unhappy portion of their fellow coun- 
trymen ! 

And what unsuccessful experiments justify this depreciation 
of the gospel of Jesus Christ ? When have those who thus 
speak of the inefficacy of religion in subduing these sinful pre- 
judices, tried its power ? When have colonizationists warned 
Christians that the negro is created by the same Almighty 
Being, descended from the same parent, redeemed by the same 
Saviour, and made an heir of the same immortality with them- 
selves ? When have we been reminded by them of that heart- 
searching declaration which will be uttered by the Judge at the 
last day, " inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye did it not to me ? " 

Admitting that the blacks who have gone to Africa have 
improved their condition, what is the total amount of good thus 
effected? Of the 319,467 free negroes in the United States, 2,122 
have in the last eighteen years been sent to Liberia. Supposing 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 81 

them to be happy in their new abode, at what a deplorable sac- 
rifice of the happiness of their brethren here, has their own 
been purchased ! To raise funds for their transportation, our 
churches and halls, in all parts of the United States, have rung 
with reproaches and accusations against the free people of color. 
Orators, preachers, legislators, have denounced them as nuisances, 
vile excrescences on the body politic — ignorant, depraved, 
debased, and utterly incapable of improvement and elevation. 
The laws oppressing them have been vindicated, and all legis- 
lation deprecated, that would even encourage the hope of their 
permanent improvement. 

And is it possible that this general and united effort to prevent 
these people from rising, and to render them odious to the com- 
munity, should have no practical effect on public opinion and 
conduct ? Already do we hear their forcible expulsion from the 
country, urged in petitions, and advocated in our State Legis- 
latures. He must be wilfully blind to passing events, who does 
not perceive that the persecution of these people is increasing 
in extent and malignity. La Fayette remarked in his last visit 
with astonishment, the aggravation of the prejudices against the 
blacks, and stated that in the revolutionary Avar, the black and 
white soldiers messed together without hesitation. 

In no instance, perhaps, has colonization had so direct and 
obvious an influence in augmenting the injuries and oppression 
of this unhappy race, as in Connecticut. To that State have 
good men long rejoiced to look as to a bright pattern of a 
Christian republic. There they beheld political liberty in its 
highest perfection, and so divested, by the influence of religion, 
of those irregularities of conduct which too often attend it, that 
the State was proverbially distinguished as " the land of steady 
habits." In no part of the world were the blessings of education 
more highly valued, or more generally diffused. The Coloniza- 
tion Society had there taken a strong hold on the affections of 
the people, and had found in Connecticut divines and politicians, 
and in the religious periodicals of New Haven, zealous and able 
champions. 

The city of New Haven had been long, alike distinguished 



32 jay's works. 

for its literary institutions, and for the sobriety and piety of its 
inhabitants. It is not, therefore, surprising that some of the 
most intelligent and influential of our colored citizens were led 
to believe that New Haven would be a proper site for a school 
for their children, and that such a school would there find gen- 
erous patrons. In 1831, a convention was held in Philadelphia, 
of delegates from the free colored people in other States, and it 
was determined that an effort should be made to raise funds for 
" a collegiate school, on the manual labor system." A committee 
was appointed to carry the plan into execution. This committee 
published in Philadelphia, " An appeal to the benevolent," in 
which they stated the necessity of the proposed school, on 
account of the difficulty which colored children experienced in 
gaining admission into ordinary seminaries, or mechanical estab- 
lishments ; and that the proposed seminary would be located at 
New Haven, and " established on the self-supporting system, so 
that the student may cultivate habits of industry, and obtain a 
useful mechanical or agricultural profession, while pursuing 
classical studies." 

Bishops White and Onderdonk, and the Rev. Doctors Mc- 
Auley, Bedell, and Ely, of Philadelphia, gave the committee 
written certificates of their approbation of the education of 
colored youth. Little, alas, did these gentlemen anticipate the 
feeling this effort would excite among the Christians of New 
Haven. No sooner had intelligence of the intended school 
reached that city, than the mayor summoned a town meeting, 
" to take into consideration a scheme, said to be in progress, for 
the establishment in this city of a college for the education of 
colored youth." The meeting was held on the 8th of September, 
1831, and it was " Resolved by the Mayor, Aldermen, Common 
Council, and free men of the city of New Haven, in city meeting 
assembled, that we will resist the establishment of the proposed 
college in this place by every lawful means." This resolution 
was preceded by a preamble, stating that " in connection with 
this establishment, the immediate abolition of slavery in the 
United States is not only recommended and encouraged by the 
advocates of the proposed college, but demanded as a right," 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 33 

and " that the propagation of sentiments, favorable to the imme- 
diate emancipation of slaves, in disregard of the civil institutions 
of the States to which they belong, and as auxiliary thereto, the 
contemporaneous founding of colleges for educating colored peo- 
ple, is an unwarrantable and dangerous interference with the 
internal concerns of other States, and ought to be discouraged." 

That the education of colored citizens in Connecticut is an 
unwarrantable interference with the internal concerns of other 
States, and that the friends of the proposed college ever recom- 
mended the immediate emancipation of slaves in disregard of the 
civil institutions of the States to which they belong, are asser- 
tions which the Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council, and free 
men of the city of New Haven prudently permitted to rest on 
their own authority, without adducing any other evidence of 
their truth. 

But surely, the pious and excellent colonizationists of New 
Haven, who are so anxious to civilize the natives of Africa, 
must have been indignant at this attempt to keep Americans in 
ignorance. Alas, in that crowded assembly, there was but one 
voice raised against its unholy resolution, and that was the voice 
of a decided anti-colonizationist, the Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, while 
one of the public advocates of the resolution was the Secretary 
of the New Haven Committee of Correspondence of the Amer- 
ican Colonization Society. 

The Colonization party in New Haven could have prevented 
this high-handed oppression, but their influence was exerted not 
for, but against the improvement and elevation of their colored 
brethren. 

Unhappily fur the character of Connecticut, for that of our 
common country, and even of Christianity itself, the proceedings 
in New Haven were but the commencement of a series of out- 
rages on justice, humanity, and the rights of freemen. 

There are occasions on which it is treason to truth and honor, 
if not to religion, to suppress our indignation ; and while we 
shall scrupulously adhere to truth in relating the measures pur- 
sued in Connecticut, to prevent the education of a certain class 
4 



34 jay's works. 

of colored persons, we shall not shrink from a free expression of 
our opinions of those measures, and of their authors. 

Miss Crandall, a communicant in the Baptist church, and, as 
we believe, a lady of irreproachable character, had for some 
time been at the head of a female boarding school, in the town 
of Canterbury, Connecticut, when in the autumn of 1832, a 
pious colored female applied to her for admission into her school, 
stating that she wanted " to get a little more learning — enough, 
if possible, to teach colored children." After some hesitation, 
Miss Crandall consented to admit her, but was soon informed 
that this intruder must be dismissed, or that the shool would be 
greatly injured. This threat turned her attention to the cruel 
prejudices and disadvantages under which the blacks are suffer- 
ing, and she resolved to open a shool exclusively for colored girls. 
It has been thought expedient to doubt the philanthropy of this 
resolution, and to attribute it to pecuniary motives. Whatever 
may have been her motives, and pecuniary ones would not have 
been unlawful, she had a perfect right to open a school for pupils 
of any color whatever ; and had not the moral sense of the com- 
munity been perverted, this attempt to instruct the poor, the 
friendless, and the ignorant, would have met with applause 
instead of contumely. She discontinued her school, and in Feb- 
ruary, 1833, gave public notice of her intention to open one for 
colored girls. This notice excited prodigious commotion in the 
town of Canterbury. " That black girls should presume to learn 
reading, and writing, and music, and geography, was past all 
bearing. Committee after committee waited on Miss Crandall, 
to remonstrate against the intended school, but to no purpose. 
More efficient means were found necessary to avert the impend- 
ing calamity, and a legal town meeting was summoned to con- 
sider the awful crisis. At this meeting resolutions were passed, 
expressing the strongest disapprobation of the proposed school, 
and the preamble declared that " the obvious tendency of this 
school would be to collect within the town of Canterbury, large 
numbers of persons from other States, whose characters and 
habits might be various and unknown to us, thereby rendering 
insecure the persons, property, and reputations of our citizens." 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 35 

Had this extreme nervous apprehension of danger been excited 
in the good people of Canterbury by the introduction of some 
hundreds of Irish laborers into their village to construct a rail- 
road or canal, we should still have thought their temperament 
very peculiar ; but when we find them thus affecting to tremble, 
not merely for their property, but for their persons and reputa- 
tions, at the approach of fifteen or twenty " young ladies and 
little misses of color," we confess we are astonished that the 
collected wisdom of these people was not able to frame an argu- 
ment against the school, less disgraceful to themselves. 

Andrew T. Judson, Esq., acted as clerk to this meeting, and 
supported the resolutions in a speech, in which he is reported to 
have said, " that should the school go into operation, their sons 
and daughters would be forever ruined, and property no longer 
safe." For his part, he was not willing, for the honor and wel- 
fare of the town, that even one corner of it should be appropri- 
ated to such a purpose. After the example which New Haven 
had set, he continued, " shall it be said that toe cannot, that we 
dare not resist ? " Mr. Judson further stated, that they had 
" A law which should prevent that school from going into oper- 
ation." 

The resolutions of the town meeting, as became so grave a 
matter, were communicated to Miss Crandall by the " civil 
authority and selectmen," but strange as it may seem, that lady 
stoocWess in dread of them, than .they did of the " young ladies 
of color," for she refused to retreat from the ground she had 
taken. 

The example of New Haven, we have seen, was held up to 
the people of Canterbury by Mr. Judson, for their encourage- 
ment, and as an earnest of their ultimate success. Still the 
cases were not exactly similar. " The civil authority and select- 
men " of Canterbury, had not the imposing array of power and 
influence displayed by " the Mayor, Aldermen, Common Council, 
and free men of the city of New Haven." The latter, by the 
mere expression of their opinion, had prevented the establish- 
ment of a college for colored youth ; the former were set at 
naught by an unprotected female. Some means more efficacious 



36 jay's works. 

than the fulminations of a town meeting were, therefore, next to 
be tried. Mr. Judson had indeed a certain law in reserve, but 
it was necessary that certain influences should be previously 
brought into action, before a civilized and Christian people could 
be induced to tolerate the application of that law. Colonization, 
as already remarked, had taken a deep hold on the affections of 
the people of Connecticut. Their most eminent men had 
enrolled themselves in the ranks of the Society. To this pow- 
erful association recourse was now had. On the 2 2d of March, 
1833, the " civil authority and selectmen " of Canterbury made 
their "appeal to the American Colonization Society." 
In this most extraordinary paper, they expatiate on the benevo- 
lence of the Society towards the colored population, and deplore 
the opposition it encounters from certain individuals who have 
formed " the Anti-Slavery Society." These men, they assert, 
wish to admit the blacks " into the bosom of our society," and 
would "justify intermarriages with the white people." They 
then recite their own grievances, detail the proceedings of their 
town meeting, dwell on Miss Crandall's pertinacity in pursuing 
her own plans, express their horror of abolition principles, and 
state that Mr. Garrison had said that the excitement in Canter- 
buiy " is one of the genuine flowers of the colonization garden ; " 
and they add, "Be it so; we appeal to the American Coloniza- 
tion Society, to which our statement is addressed — we appeal to 
every philanthropist, and to every Christian ! " Mr. Judson's 
name appears at the head of the signers to the appeal. 

Had Miss Crandall appealed to the Society in behalf of her 
school, she would probably, and very properly, have been told 
that the subject of her school was not embraced in the constitu- 
tional objects of the Society ; and may we not ask, if the Society 
has no right to encourage, has it any right to discourage the 
establishment of schools of any description Avhatever ? In the 
singleness of its object it has often been compared to the Bible 
Society ; what would have been thought of such an appeal to the 
American Bible Society ? How the appeal was answered we 
shall presently see. 

Having thus identified their cause with that of the Coloniza- 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 37 

tion Society, and secured the sympathy of its numerous and 
powerful friends in Connecticut, Mr. Judson and his associates 
proceeded to further operations. Foiled in their attempts to 
persuade or intimidate, they now resolved on coercion. On the 
1st of April, another town meeting was convened, at which it 
was " Voted that a petition in behalf of the town of Canterbury, 
to the next General Assembly, be drawn up, in suitable lan- 
guage, deprecating the evil consequences of bringing from other 
towns and other States people of color for any purpose, and more 
especially for the purpose of disseminating the principles and 
doctrines opposed to the benevolent colonization system, 
praying said Assembly to pass and enact such laws as in their 
wisdom will prevent the evil." Mr. Judson, with others, was 
apppointed a committee to prepare the petition, and to request 
other towns to forward similar petitions. The malignity of this 
vote is equalled only by its absurdity. The desired law is to 
prevent the evil of blacks passing not only from other States, 
but other towns. Every black citizen of Connecticut is to be 
imprisoned in the town in which the laAV happens to find him, 
and he may not travel into the adjoining town for " any pur- 
pose," and all this especially to prevent interference with " the 
benevolent colonization system." 

Did the Colonization Society protest against such an outrage 
being committed in its behalf? did it indignantly disclaim all 
connection, all sympathy with men who in its name were striv- 
ing to perpetuate such abominable tyranny ? It is not known, 
that in any way whatever, it has ever expressed its disapproba- 
tion of these proceedings. Certain it is, that the effect of the 
" appeal," and of this vote, was not such as to induce the Can- 
terbury gentlemen to falter in their career ; we have seen that 
Mr. Judson had a law, which was to arrest the school. When 
the " appeal " had been before the public just one month, the 
selectmen resolved to avail themselves of this law. 

Among the pupils of Miss Crandall, was a colored girl about 

seventeen years of age, who had come from Rhode Island to 

enjoy the advantages of the school. The pursuit of knowledge 

under discouraging difficulties has rarely failed to excite ap- 

4* 



38 jay's works. 

plause ; and the virtuous struggles of the poor and obscure to 
improve and elevate themselves, claim the sympathy of Chris- 
tian benevolence. In the present instance we behold a youthful 
female, of a despised and depressed race, attempting to emerge 
from the ignorance and degradation into which she had been cast 
by birth ; and abandoning her home and friends, and travelling 
to another State, applying for instruction to the only seminary 
in the whole country open to receive her. And now let us see 
what sympathy this poor and defenceless, but innocent and 
praiseworthy girl, experienced from the admirers of " the benev- 
olent colonization system." On the day after her arrival, she 
was ordered by the selectmen to leave the town. This order, 
as illegal as it was inhumane, was disregarded ; and on the 22d 
of April, Mi\ Judson and his fellow functionaries instituted, on 
behalf of the town, a suit against her under an old vagrant act 
of Connecticut, and a writ was issued to the sheriff, to require 
her appearance before a Justice of the Peace. The writ recited, 
that according to the statute, she had forfeited to the town $1.62 
for each day she had remained in it, since she was ordered to 
depart ; and that in default of payment, she was to be whipped 

ON THE NAKED BODY NOT EXCEEDING TEN STRIPES, UllleSS 

she departed within ten days after conviction. The barbarous 
and obsolete law under which this suit was brought, was intended 
to protect towns from the intrusion of paupers who might become 
chargeable. The friends of the school had offered to give the 
selectmen bonds to any amount, to secure the town from all cost 
on account of the pupils ; and of course this suit was a wicked 
perversion of the law, and the plaintiffs ought to have been 
indicted for a malicious prosecution under color of office. With 
equal propriety might the civil authority of New Haven warn a 
student in Yale College, from New York, to leave the city, and 
on his refusal, order him to be whipped on the naked body as a 
vagrant pauper. 

About the time of the return of this writ, the Legislature of 
Connecticut assembled, and so successfully had the Canterbury 
persecution been identified with colonization, that a law was 
passed to suppress the school, and all others of a similar char- 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 39 

acter. Its preamble declared that " attempts have been made 
to establish literary institutions in this State, for the instruction 
of colored persons belonging to other States and countries, Avhich 
would tend to the great increase of the colored population of this 
State, and thereby to the injury of the people." The act 
provides, that every person who shall set up, or establish any 
school, academy, or literary institution, for the instruction or 
education of colored persons who are not inhabitants of Connec- 
ticut ; or who shall teach in such school, or who shall board any 
colored pupil of such school, not an inhabitant of the State, shall 
forfeit one hundred dollars for the first offence, two hundred 
dollars for the second, and so on, doubling for each succeeding 
offence, unless the consent of the civil authority and selectmen 
of the town, be previously obtained. 

Mr. Judson's late attempt to enforce the whipping law, re- 
minded the Legislature of the propriety of abolishing that relic 
of barbarism, and it was accordingly repealed, and thus were the 
backs of Miss Crandall's pupils saved from the threatened 
laceration. 

It is painful and mortifying to reflect on the law obtained by 
Mr. Judson and his associates, for the suppression of the school, 
and which has very generally received the title of " the Connec- 
ticut Black Act." It is an act alien to the habits, the character, 
the religion of Connecticut. It is an act which neither policy 
nor duty can vindicate. It is an act which will afford its authors 
no consolation in the prospect of their final account, and which 
their children will blush to remember. 

It is not surprising that a Connecticut Legislature, about to 
pass a law for the discouragement of learning, should wish for 
an excuse ; nor that they should find themselves constrained to 
invent one. Miss Crandall had fifteen or twenty girls in her 
school, and it does not appear that the Legislature had ascer- 
tained how many of them had come from other States, nor that 
they had inquired into the amount of injury sustained by the 
citizens of Canterbury, in their " persons, property, and reputa- 
tions," from these "misses of color;" and yet they unhesita- 
tingly assert, that the " increase " of the colored population in 



40 jay's works. 

the State, occasioned by such schools, would be " great ; " and 
that such increase would tend to the " injury of the people." 
To test the truth of these two assertions, let it be recollected, 
first, that no evidence existed that any other seminary for 
blacks was at this time contemplated in Connecticut ; and that 
the free colored people are, as a class, sunk in abject poverty, 
and that very few of them have the means of sending their 
children from other States into Connecticut, and there maintain- 
ing them at school ; and, secondly, that no ^tortion of this popu- 
lation would be so little likely to occasion "injury to the 
people," as those who were placed at a religious school, and 
instructed in morals and literature. As to the sincerity of the 
apprehensions felt by the Legislature, let it be further recol- 
lected, that the law is intended to prevent the ingress of such 
blacks only, as might come for the honorable and virtuous pur- 
pose of education, while not the slightest impediment is opposed 
to the introduction of cooks, waiters, scullions, shoeblacks, &c, 
in any number. The best are excluded, the tvorst freely ad- 
mitted. 

We have seen that colonizationists regard all attempts to 
elevate the free blacks, as an interference with their system, 
and the Black Act is admirably calculated to prevent such 
attempts. Connecticut closes her schools to blacks from New 
York and elsewhere. If this is right, — and what State more 
religious than Connecticut ? — other States may be expected to 
follow her example. Hence no seminary, in any one State, for 
the instruction of the blacks, can be founded by their joint 
contributions ; from the academies, boarding schools, and col- 
leges of the whites, they are already excluded ; of course, they 
are — doomed to perpetual ignorance. Let each State, it is said, 
instruct its own youth. It is well for Yale College that this 
doctrine is applied only to black aspirants for knowledge. 

In 1828, an African Mission School was established at Hart- 
ford, for the purpose of educating colored youth, "to be selected 
from our numerous African population," and, of course, from 
other States besides Connecticut. It was under the patron- 
age of the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 41 

United States. No outcry was excited against tliis school ; no 
citizen of Hartford trembled for Lis property, person, or repu- 
tation. Why not ? Because the school was auxiliary to colo- 
nization, and those instructed in it were to be sent out of -the 
country. 

No sooner was the passage of the Black Act known in Can- 
terbury, than this triumph over justice, humanity, and constitu- 
tional liberty, was celebrated by afeit de joie, and the ringing 
of bells. Nor was the act permitted to remain a dead letter. 
Miss Crandall was prosecuted under it, and being unable to 
procure bail, was committed to prison. The next day bail was 
obtained, and she returned to her school. "Well, indeed, might 
the public press, with some memorable exceptions, execrate the 
Black Act ; and well, indeed, might Mr. Judson feel impatient, 
under the obloquy that was falling upon him, as the chief in- 
stigator and manager of the prosecution. " A friend in need, 
is a friend indeed." And now was the time when he needed and 
received that countenance, for which he had appealed to the 
Colonization Society. It was not probably expected that the 
managers of the parent Society would officially notice the appeal, 
but a mode was devised, on the part of Connecticut coloniza- 
tionists, of publicly expressing their approbation of Mr. Judson's 
conduct. On the anniversary of the declaration that " all men 
are created equal," and a few clays after Miss Crandall's impris- 
onment, the "Windham County* Colonization Society convened, 
and appointed Mr. Judson their orator and agent, thus proclaim- 
ing that he was the man they delighted to honor. Another 
response to the appeal was in a few days heard from New 
York. The chairman of the executive committee of the New 
York City Colonization Society, is the editor of the New York 
Commercial Advertiser, and its columns were loaded with crim- 
inations of Miss Crandall, and vindications of the Black Act. 
" The inhabitants of Canterbury " were declared to be " as 
quiet, peaceable, humane, and inoffensive people, as can be 
named in the United States." The constitutionality of the 

* The County in which Canterbury is situated. 



42 jay's works. 

Black Act was broadly maintained, and it was averred to be " just 
sucli a law in its spirit, if not in its provisions, as we are in the 
constant practice of enforcing in this city, to prevent our char- 
itable institutions from being filled to overflowing with black 
paupers from the South, and white paupers from Europe." Of 
the gentleman who drafted the Black Act, the public were as- 
sured, " a warmer heart than his throbs in few bosoms, and the 
African race has no firmer friend than him."* 

On the 23d of August, Miss Crandall was brought to trial. 
The crime with which she was charged, was fully proved. One 
of the witnesses testified : " The school is usually opened and 
closed with prayer ; the Scriptures are read and explained in 
the school daily ; portions are committed to memory by the 
pupils, and considered part of their education." 

The orator and agent of the Windham Colonization Society, 
opened the case on the part of the prosecution, and to this gen- 
tleman, it is believed, belongs the distinction of having been the 
first man in New England to propound publicly the doctrine, 
that free colored persons are not citizens. This doctrine was 
essential to the validity of the Black Act, since by the federal 
Constitution, citizens of one State are entitled to all the privi- 
leges of citizenship in every other State ; and the Act prohib- 
ited colored persons from other States from going to school in 
Connecticut, a prohibition palpably unconstitutional, if free 
blacks are citizens. The presiding judge submitted the cause 
to the jury without comment ; and some of them having scru- 
ples about Mr. Judson's new doctrine, refused to agree in a ver- 
dict of guilty, and a new trial was consequently ordered. In 
the ensuing October, Miss Crandall was again placed at the bar, 
while the vice president of the New Haven Colonization Soci- 
ety, Judge Daggett, took his seat on the bench. The cause 
against the defendant was again argued by the "Windham Colo- 
nization orator and agent ; and Judge Daggett, warned by the 
result of the preceding trial, of the necessity of enlightening the 
consciences of the jury, delivered an elaborate charge. Rarely 

Commercial Advertiser, July 16 and 29, 1833. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 43 

has any judge enjoyed such an opportunity of defending the 
poor and fatherless, of doing justice to the afflicted and needy, 
of delivering the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor. The 
merits of the cause turned on the simple question whether free 
blacks are citizens or not. We might have presumed that a 
judge, aware of his solemn responsibility, would have j^repared 
himself for the decision of this momentous question, by the 
most patient and thorough research. On the opinion he might 
pronounce, would perhaps rest the future education, comfort, 
freedom, and not unlikely, everlasting happiness of multitudes 
of his fellow-men. Under such circumstances, the public had 
a right to expect that he would resort to every source of 
information ; that 'he would consult the opinions of eminent 
statesmen and jurists ; investigate the constitutional history of 
the rights of these people ; study the proceedings of Congress in 
relation to them, and bring together such a mass of facts, such 
an array of arguments, as would prove that his decision, what- 
ever it might be, was the result of conscientious inquiry, and 
that the bench was elevated far above the prejudices and pas- 
sions, which had brought to the bar an innocent and benevolent 
female. 

The judge, in his charge, expresses himself in the following 
words : * " Are the free people of color citizens ? I answer, 
No." The grounds on which this answer is given, appear to be 
the following : 

1st, " They are not so styled in the Constitution of the United 
States. In that clause of the Constitution which fixes the basis of rer> 
resentation, there was an opportunity to have called them citizens, if 
they were so considered. But that makes free jjersons (adding three- 
fifths of all other persons) the basis of representation and taxation." 

The words of the Constitution referred to by the Judge, are, 
(Art. 1. Sec. 3,) " Representatives and direct taxes shall be ap- 
portioned among the several States which may be included 
within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which 
shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free per- 

*"We quote from a newspaper report of the charge, and have no knowledge 
that the accuracy of the report has ever been denied. 



44 jay's works. 

sons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons." 

Now, it seems, free colored persons cannot be citizens, be- 
cause they are not in this section so called ; but unfortunately 
free white persons are not called citizens, and they also must 
therefore be disfranchised ! Apprentices (" those bound to ser- 
vice for a term of years,") are likewise included among free 
persons, and they also cannot be citizens ! 

Had free white persons been spoken of as citizens, and free 
black persons only as " persons," then indeed there would have 
been some force in the judge's first reason ; but as there is not 
the slightest reference in the Constitution to the complexion of 
the " free persons," we cannot understand the argument, and 
proceed, therefore, to his 

- 2d reason. " They (free negroes) are not so styled, (citizens,) so 
far as I am aware, in the laws of Congress, or of any of the States." 

It would thus seem that men with black skins cannot be citi- 
zens, unless the laws expressly declare them to be so. So far 
as we are aware, men with red hair are not styled citizens in 
the laws of Congress, or of any of the States. 

3d reason. " His Honor then read from Kent's Commentary, Vol. 
H, p. 210, a note in which the commentator speaks of the degraded 
condition of the blacks, and the disabilities under which they labor, 
and thence inferred that, in Kent's opinion, they were not citizens." 

Had the judge found it convenient to consult the text of this 
learned and independent jurist, the following passage would 
have saved him the trouble of drawing an inference. 

" The article in the Constitution of the United States, declaring 
that citizens of each State were entitled to all the privileges and im- 
munities of citizens in the several States, applies to natural born or 
duly naturalized citizens, and if they remove from one State to another, 
they are entitled to the privileges that persons of the same description 
are entitled to in the State to which the removal is made, and to none 
other. If, therefore, for instance, free persons of color are not enti- 
tled to vote in Carolina, free persons of color emigrating there from a 
Northern State would not be entitled to vote." 

Here is an express admission of the citizenship of free col- 
ored persons, and their case is cited to illustrate the rights of 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 45 

citizens under the federal Constitution. If a free black, accord- 
ing to the commentary, moving from one State to another, is, 
under the federal Constitution, entitled only to such privileges 
as the free blacks in the latter State enjoy, it follows irresistibly 
that he is entitled to such privileges as the free blacks do there 
enjoy. Now, the free blacks of Connecticut enjoy a legal right 
to go to school, and to any school that will receive them ; hence, 
according to Chancellor Kent, a free black removing from 
another State into Connecticut, has the same right, and hence 
the Black Act is plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 

4th. " Another reason for believing that people of color are not 
considered citizens, is found in the fact, that when the United States 
Constitution was adopted, every State except Massachusetts tolerated 
slavery." 

Why a free black man cannot be a citizen, because another 
black man is a slave, is a problem we confess ourselves unable 
to solve. 

Such are the arguments, and the only ones adduced by the 
judge, to support his portentous decision ; a decision which 
tends to strip the free negro of his property and rights ; renders 
him an alien in the land of his birth ; exposes him to contumely 
and oppression, and prepares the way for his forcible deportation 
to the shores of Africa. 

In order to do full justice to Judge Daggett, it may be proper 
to notice his answers to objections, since these answers may, 
perhaps, be regarded as negative arguments. To the assertion, 
that free blacks own vessels which participate in the peculiar 
privileges of American shipping, and that they sue in the United 
States courts, he simply replied, that these claims have never 
been settled by judicial decisions. To the argument that free 
blacks may be guilty of high treason, he replied, " So may any 
person who resides under the government, and enjoys its pro- 
tection, if he rises up against it." 

Having thus fairly stated the judge's arguments, we will now 
take the liberty of presenting a few facts having an important 
bearing on this question ; facts, be it remembered, that were 



46 jay's works. 

accessible to the Judge, had he thought it worth while to look 
for them. 

By the fourth of the " Articles of Confederation," it was pro- 
vided, that " the free inhabitants of these States shall be entitled 
to all the privileges and immunities of fr.ee citizens in the several 
States." While these articles were under consideration in 
Congress, it appears from the journals, that on the 25th of June, 
1778, " the delegates from South Carolina moved the follow- 
ing amendment in behalf of their State : — ' In Article Fourth, 
between the words free inhabitants, insert white.' Passed in 
the negative — Ayes, 2 States, Nays 8 States — 1 State di- 
vided." Here then was a solemn decision of the Revolutionary 
Congress, that free negroes should be entitled to all the privileges 
and immunities of free citizens in the several States. Judge 
Dafjrett thinks that the Constitution of the United States did 
not regard free blacks as citizens, because in 1788 all the States, 
with one exception, tolerated slavery; yet, in 1778, Congress 
decided that free blacks were citizens, although all the States, 
without one exception, tolerated slavery. Ten years after this 
decision, the new Constitution was formed, and the clause re- 
specting citizenship in the several States was transferred to it 
from the Articles of Confederation, with slight verbal alterations. 
That the clause embraced free negroes at the time it was trans- 
ferred, was settled by the vote we have quoted ; no words were 
added to exclude them ; no intimation was given that the new 
Constitution was disfranchising thousands, and tens of thousands, 
who Congress had declared were invested with all the rights and 
immunities of free citizens. No desire was expressed to dis- 
franchise these people, and in the debates on the Constitution, 
this disfranchisement was never alluded to either in the lan- 
guage of praise or of censure ; and for more than forty years 
after the adoption of the Constitution, no suspicion existed that 
it had divested the free blacks of the citizenship they enjoyed 
under the Confederation, till the discovery was made by the 
agent and orator of the Windham Colonization Society, and 
juridically announced by the Vice President of the New Haven 
Colonization Society. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 47 

Judge Daggett " is not aware that free blacks are styled citizens 
in the laws of Congress or of any of the States ! " How laborious 
has been his search for such laws, we shall now see. Probably 
the judge will admit that when the law speaks of male citizens, 
they recognize the existence of female citizens ; and most judges 
would admit, that where the law speaks of white citizens, they 
recognize the existence of citizens who are not ichite. 

The act of Congress of 1792, for organizing the militia, pro- 
vides for the enrolment of " free white male citizens." 

The act of Congress of 1803, "to prevent the importation of 
certain persons into certain States, when by the laws thereof 
their admission is prohibited," enacts that masters and captains 
of vessels shall not " import or bring, or cause to be, imported or 
brought, any negro, mulatto, or other person of color, not being a 
native, a citizen, or registered seaman of the United States," 
&c. 

The constitution of Judge Daggett's own State, limits the 
rieht of suffrage to "free white male citizens." Why male 
citizens, if there are no female citizens? and why white citizens, 
if there can be no colored ones ? Seven or eight State constitu- 
tions, in the same manner, recognize the existence of colored 
citizens. Had the judge extended his inquiries into State 
laws, to those of Massachusetts, he would have found one pro- 
hibiting any negro "other than a CITIZEN of the United 
States," or a subject of the Emperor of Morocco, from tarrying 
in the Commonwealth longer than two months. Had be taken 
the trouble to consult the statute book of New York, he would 
have found the following clause in the act relative to elections, 
viz. : " If the person so offering to vote be a colored man, the 
following oath shall be tendered to him : ' You do swear (or 
affirm) that you are of the age of twenty-one years, that for 
three years you have been a CITIZEN of this State,' " &c. 
Revised Statutes, I, 134. 

Had the judge condescended to look into the debates of the 
New York Convention of 1821, on the question of admitting the 
free blacks to the right of suffrage, he would have discovered to 
his astonishment, that the New York lawyers and judges had no 



48 jay's works. 

hesitation in admitting these people to be citizens, whatever 
might be their objections to permitting them to vote. He would 
have found Chancellor Kent earnestly contending for their 
rights to citizenship in other States under the federal Constitu- 
tion. He would have found Rufus King, (no mean authority,) 
concluding an argument in their behalf, with these words : " As 
certainly as the children of any white man are citizens, so 
certainly the children of the black man are citizens." 

Had the judge opened the constitution of the State of New 
York, he would have met with a clause in the article respecting 
the elective franchise, declaring, " No man of color, unless he 
shall have been three years a CITIZEN of this State," &c. 

On the 4th of September, 182G, Governor Clinton, of New 
York, addressed a letter to the President of the United States, 
demanding the immediate liberation of Gilbert Horton, a colored 
man, as " A CITIZEN of this State," he having been impris- 
oned in Washington as a fugitive slave. 

In every State in the Union, we believe, without one exception 
a native free born negro may legally take, hold, and convey 
real estate. Will Judge Daggett deny this to be an attribute of 
citizenship ? * Will he maintain that any but citizens may 
exercise the right of suffrage ? But in eight or ten States, free 
negroes may legally vote. True it is, that in others, this privilege 
is denied to them, but it is not true that none are citizens who 
cannot vote. The act of Congress respecting naturalization, 
provides, that in a certain case, the widow and children of a 
deceased alien " shall be citizens of the United States." 

Impressed colored sailors have been claimed by the national 
government, as " citizens of the United States ; " and colored 
men going to Europe, have received passports from the depart- 
ment of State, certifying that they were citizens of the United 
States. 

The proposed constitution of the new State of Missouri re- 



*Iteal estate in the city of New York to the value of fifty thousand dollars 
was lately devised to a free colored man in that city, hut according to the 
judge, he is not a citizen, and of course cannot take by devise. If "so, the 
property must go to the heir at law, or escheat to the State. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 49 

quired the Legislature to pass such laws as might he necessary 
" to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to settle in 
the State, under, any pretext whatever." The Legislature ot 
New York, in reference to this provision, on the 15th November, 
1820, " Resolved, if the provisions contained in any proposed 
constitution of a new State deny to any citizens of the existing 
States the privileges and immunities of citizens of such new 
State, that such proposed constitution should not be accepted or 
confirmed, the same, in the opinion of this Legislature, being 
void by the Constitution of the United States." This resolution 
was adopted in high party times, by an almost unanimous 
vote. 

The constitution being submitted to Congress, the article 
excluding colored citizens, was deemed by the House of Repre- 
sentatives a violation of the national compact, and that body 
refused to receive Missouri into the Union. A compi-omise was 
at last agreed to, and Congress admitted Missouri on the express 
condition that the offensive clause in her constitution should 
never authorize any law by which any citizen of any of the 
States should be excluded from the enjoyment of any of the 
privileges and immunities to which such citizen is entitled by the 
Constitution of the United States ; and that the Legislature of 
Missouri should by a solemn act declare their assent to this 
condition. The Legislature passed the act required, and there- 
upon the State became a member of the Union. Yet Judge 
Daggett is not aware of any act of Congress recognizing free 
blacks as citizens ! 

Admit free negroes to be men, and to be bom free in the 
United States, and it is impossible to frame even a plausible 
argument against their citizenship. The only argument on this 
point we have ever met with, in which the conclusion is legiti- 
mately deduced from the premises, is by a late writer,* who 
maintains that the negroes are a distinct race of animals. Now 
it must be conceded, that the negro, if not a human being, is not 

*The author of "Evidences against the Views of the Abolitionists, con- 
sisting of physical and moral proofs of the natural inferiority of the 
negroes." New York, 1833. 

5* 



50 jay's works. 

a citizen. We recommend the following reasoning to the future 
judicial apologists of the Black Act. 

" His (the negro's) lips are thick, his zygomatic muscles large and full, 
his jaws large and projecting, his chin retreating, his forehead low, flat, 
and slanting, and as a consequence of this latter character, his eyeballs 
are very prominent, apparently larger than those of the white men ; 
all of these peculiarities at the same time contributing to reduce his 
facial angle almost to a level with the brute. If then it is consistent 
with science to believe that the mind will be greater in proportion to 
the size and figure of the brain, it is equally reasonable to suppose that 
the acknowledged meanness of the negro's intellect only coincides with 
the shape of his head ; or in other words, that his want of capability 
to receive a complicated education, renders it improper and impolitic 
that he should be allowed the privileges of citizenship in an enlight- 
ened country." P. 25, 26. 

The author is an ultra colonizationist, and the conclusion to 
which he arrives is, " let the blacks be removed, nolens volens, 
from among us." 

We have dwelt the longer on the Connecticut decision, on 
account of its immense importance to a numerous class of our 
fellow countrymen. The victims of a cruel prejudice, and of 
wicked laws, they especially claimed the aid and sympathy of 
the humane, when striving to elevate themselves by the acqui- 
sition of useful knowledge. But Judge Daggett's doctrine 
crushes them to the earth. Denounced by a powerful society, 
extending its influence over every part of our country, as 
" nuisances," and judicially declared not to be citizens, they 
are delivered over to the tormentors, bound hand and foot. If 
not citizens, they may be dispossessed of their dwellings, for 
they cannot legally hold real estate — they may be denied the 
means of a livelihood, and forbidden to buy and sell, or to prac- 
tise any trade, for they are no longer protected by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. Nay, they may be expelled from 
town to town, and from State to State, till finding no resting 
place for the soles of their feet, they " consent " to embark for 
Africa. 

However inconclusive we are disposed to regard Judge Dag- 
gett's arguments, they were satisfactory to the jury, and a verdict 
was given against Miss Crandall. The cause was removed to 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 51 

the Connecticut Court of Errors, where all the proceedings were 
set aside on technical grounds. Certain of the " quiet, peaceable, 
humane, and inoffensive people of Canterbury," tired with the 
law's delay, determined on ejecting the school by a summary 
process, and accordingly mobbed the house by night, and smashed 
in the windows. It was now discovered, that it was the " per- 
sons " of inoffensive females, and not of Mr. Judson and his 
associates, that were endangered, and the school was abandoned ; 
thus were the efforts of the admirers of " the benevolent sys- 
tem of colonization " crowned with entire success. 

Soon after Judge Daggett's decision, a most inflammatory 
petition to the Connecticut Legislature, was circulated in New 
Haven. We quote from a printed copy. 

" If they (the negroes) have rights, we humbly hope it is not yet 
too late to presume that the white man also, the only legal native Amer- 
ican citizen whom we shall ever consent to acknowledge, may be per- 
mitted to suggest that he has f some rights. If he (the white man) 
purchases a piece of land, the negro who locates near hiin, deteriorates 
its value from 20 to 50 per cent. ; for who will have a negro neighbor- 
hood, or live in unceasing fear of theft and trespass ? The white man 
cannot labor upon equal terms with the negro ; he is compelled to yield 
the market to the African, and with his family ultimately becomes the 
tenant of an alms-house, or is driven from the State to seek a better 
lot in the western wilds. Thus have thousands of our most val- 
uable citizens been banished from home and kindred, for the accommo- 
dation of the most debased race that the civilized world has ever seen." 

The petitioners, as might be supposed, are colonizationists. 
" If the negro cannot consistently with our interest or our feel- 
ings be admitted to the same rights that we enjoy, let him seek 
a country where he will find those who are his equals ; let us 
unite in aiding him to reach that country" 

It has never been denied that good men belong to the Coloniza- 
tion Society ; and it ought not to be denied that even good men 
are fallible, and subject to erroneous opinions and unwarrantable 
prejudices. To us it appears unquestionable, that the facts 
developed in the preceding pages, prove a tendency in the Soci- 
ety to excite in the community, a persecuting spirit towards the 
free blacks. That the pious, and respectable members of the 
Society, detest the horrible outrages recently committed upon 



52 jay's works. 

these people in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, it would 
be both foolish and wicked to doubt ; and yet no one who can- 
didly and patiently investigates the whole subject, can fail to 
be convinced that these outrages never would have happened, 
had the Society never existed. The assertion is not hazardous, 
that of the multitudes composing the negro mobs, there was not 
an individual less disposed than the Canterbury town meeting, 
to laud the " benevolent colonization system." Every wretch 
who participated in beating and plundering free negroes, would 
rejoice in their expulsion from their country, and in the Society 
he beholds an instrument for the accomplishment of his wishes. 
But how is it possible that the best and the worst of men can 
unite in supporting the same institution ? In the first place, 
these good men, as is abundantly evident from their own confes- 
sions, are actuated by motives of supposed public policy, as well 
as benevolence, in promoting the colonization of people whom 
they regard as nuisances ; and in the second place, there are in 
the constitution, three talismanic words, which through the influ- 
ence of existing prejudices have blinded the eyes of these good 
men to the practical operation of the Society on the colored 
people. The words are " with their consent." It is spe- 
ciously argued, if the free blacks consent to go to Africa, why not 
send them ? if they do not wish to go, they are at liberty to 
remain. This argument seems for the most part to have 
benumbed the consciences and understandings of coloniza- 
tionists, as to the cruel persecution which their Society necessa- 
rily encourages. They would be horrified at the idea of their 
agents scouring the country, and seizing men, women and child- 
ren, placing them on the rack, till as joint after joint was dislo- 
cated, the suffering wretches consented to go to Africa ; and yet 
the Society feels no compunction in countenancing legal oppres- 
sion having the same ultimate object in view, and in transporting 
negroes whose consent they well know has been extorted by the 
most abominable persecution. Many will feel disposed to deny 
the truth of these assertions ; but not, we trust, after seeing the 
proof of them, which we will now proceed to offer. 

We have already adverted to the cruel laws by which these 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 53 

people are oppressed, and kept, purposely kept, in ignorance 
and degradation. Now let it be recollected, that with but few 
exceptions, these laws have been either enacted, or are kept in 
force by legislatures which have formally and in their legisla- 
tive capacity, passed resolutions in favor of the Society. Four- 
teen States, have thus avowed their attachment to colonization. 
Now had these States, including Connecticut, Ohio, and several 
of the slave States, repealed their laws against the free blacks, 
and forborne to enact new ones, their sincerity in approving a 
plan for the removal of these people with their consent would 
have been less questionable than it is now, when they persist in 
a course of policy well calculated to coerce that consent. The 
Society appeal's to be a particular favorite with the slave States, 
with the exception of South Carolina, where its true character 
seems to have been misunderstood. 

Now hear the acknowledgment of a Southern writer. "We 
have before us the fourth edition, 1834, of " A Treatise on the 
Patriarchal System of Society : " by a Florida slave-holder. It 
is a treatise, in sober earnestness, on the means of perpetuating 
Slavery, and increasing its profits. The author says, p. 12 — 
" Colonization in Africa has been proposed to the free colored 
people : to forward which, a general system of persecution 
against them, upheld from the pulpit, has been legalized through- 
out the Southern States." The writer does not explain his al- 
lusion to the Southern pulpit ; but we may judge of its influence 
on the condition of the free blacks, from the avowal already 
quoted from the Southern Religious Telegraph, of its repug- 
nance to these people being taught to read, because such an ac- 
quirement would be an inducement with them to remain in this 
country ; or, in other words, that the better they were treated 
here, the less likely would they be to consent to go to Africa. 

The Legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, it is well known, 
have made large appropriations for colonization, and yet these 
Legislatures are among the most malignant persecutors of the 
free blacks. The original bill making the Virginia appropria- 
tion, contained a clause for the compidsory transportation of free 
blacks. Let it be recollected that the Colonization Society has 



54 jay's works. 

ever been the peculiar favorite of Virginia, and that her most 
distinguished citizens have been enrolled among its officers ; and 
let us now see hoio colonization has been promoted in that State. 
On a motion to strike out the compulsory clause, Mr. Brodnax 
thus expressed himself against the motion : 

It is idle to talk about not resorting to force. Every 
body must look to the introduction of force of some kind or other. If 
the free negroes are willing to go, they will go ; if not willing, they 
MUST be compelled TO GO. Some gentlemen think it politic not 
now to insert this feature in the bill, though they proclaim their readi- 
ness to resort to it when it becomes necessary ; they think, that for a 
year or two, a sufficient number will consent to go, and then the 
rest can be compelled. For my part, I deem it better to ap- 
proach the question and settle it at once, and avow it openly ._ The 
intelligent portion of the free negroes know very well what is going on. 
Will they not see your debates ? Will they not see that coercion is 
ultimately to be resorted to ? I have already expressed it as 
my opinion, that few, very few, will voluntarily consent to emigrate, if 
no compulsory measures be adopted. Without it, you will still, no 
doubt, have applicants for removal equal to your means. Yes, sir, 
people who will not only consent, but beg you to deport them. But 
what sort of consent! — a consent extorted by a species of oppression, 
calculated to render their situation among us insupportable ! Many of 
those who have been already sent off, went with their avowed consent, 
but under the influence of a more decided compulsion than any which 
this bill holds out. I will not express in its fullest extent, the idea I 
entertain of ivhat has been done, or tohat enormities ivill be perpetrated 
to induce this class of persons to leave the State. Who does not know 
that when a free negro, by crime or otherwise, has rendered himself 
obnoxious to a neighborhood, how easy it is for a party to visit him one 
night, take him from his bed and family, and apply to him the gentle 
admonition of a severe flagellation, to induce him to go away ? In a few 
nights the dose can be repeated, perhaps increased, until, in the lan- 
guage of the physicians, quantum suff. has been administered to pro- 
duce the desired operation, and the fellow becomes perfectly willing 
to move away. I have certainly heard, (if incorrectly, the gentle- 
man from Southampton will put me right,) that all the large cargo of 
emigrants, lately transported from that country to Liberia, all of whom 
professed to be willing to go, were rendered so by some such ministration 
as I have described. Indeed, sir, all of us look to force of some kind 
or other, direct or indirect, moral or physical, legal or illegal." 

Another member, Mr. Fisher, in opposing the motion, said : 

" If we wait till the free negroes consent to leave the State, we shall 
wait until time is no more. They never will give their consent. He 
believed if the compulsory principle were stricken out, this class would 
be forced to leave by the harsh treatment of the whites." 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 55 

The compulsory clause was stricken out, but we have the as- 
surance of Mr. Brodnax, that they Avho objected to it at present, 
were ready to resort to force whenever it should become neces- 
sary ; and he tells us, that all look to force of some kind or 
other ; and he might have added, " all of us look to the Coloni- 
zation Society as the instrument by which the forcible expulsion 
of the free negroes is to be effected." Nor do they look in vain. 
At the very time that the negroes of Southampton were suffer- 
ing the barbarities he describes, the managers of the Society 
addressed their auxiliaries, urging them to increased efforts in 
raising funds, and, alluding to the excitement occasioned by the 
insurrection at Southampton, remarked, "the free people of 
color have awakened from their slumber, to a keen sense of their 
situation, and are ready in large numbers to emigrate to the 
Colony of Liberia." Address, 11th Nov. 1831. 

A large number of these miserable people did indeed consent 
to go to Africa, and the managers well knew how their consent 
was obtained. " I warned the managers against this Virginia 
business," said Mr. Breckenridge in his speech before the Soci- 
ety, " and yet they sent out two shiploads of vagabonds, not fit 
to go to such a place, and that were coerced away as truly as if 
it had been done with a cartwhip." 

Hear the confession of Mr. Gurley, the Secretary of the So- 
ciety, on this subject : 

" Our friends at Norfolk appealed to us, and said the people were 
persecuted, and that it was a matter of humanity to take thern. Our 
agent said they were driven from the county, and had appealed to him, 
and begged to go to Liberia." Speech before the Society. 

Hear the testimony of Thomas C. Brown, from Liberia, given 
in May, 1834 : 

" I am acquainted with several from Southampton County, Virginia, 
who informed me that they received several hundred lashes from the 
patrols to make them willing to go. In one instance, a man was sev- 
eral times compelled to witness the lashes inflicted on his wife, and 
then to be severely flogged himself. In another instance, a family 
received information from their white neighbors, that unless they went 
to Liberia, they should be whipped. Having no means of redress, 
they were obliged to go." 



56 jay's works. 

Hear the New York Colonization Society, when addressing 

the public: 

" We say to them (the free blacks), we think you may improve your 
condition by going thither, but if you prefer remaining here, you will 
be protected and treated with kindness." Proceedings of New York Col. 
Soc, 1831. 

Hear the same Society, when addressing the Legislature : 

" "We do not ask that the provisions of our constitution and statute 
book should be so modified as to relieve and exalt the condition of the 
colored people while they remain with us. Let these provisions stand 
in all their rigor, to work out the ultimate and unbounded good 
of tliis people." In plain English, to coerce their consent to go to 
Africa. Memorial to New York Legislature, 1832. 

We have seen what are the Connecticut and Virginia plans 
for promoting colonization : now for the Pennsylvania plan. 
At a public meeting held in the borough of Columbia, (Penn.) 
at the Town Hall, 23d August, 1834, the following, among 
other resolutions, were unanimously passed. 

" Resolved, that we will not pm-chase any articles that can be pro- 
cured elsewhere, or give our vote for any office whatever, to any one 
who employs negroes to do that species of labor white men have been 
accustomed to perform. 

"Resolved, that the Colonization Society ought to be supported by all 
the citizens favorable to the removal of the blacks from this country." 

Here we find the support of the Society avowedly coupled 
with a most detestable plan of persecution. And now for the 
practical operation of this meeting of the friends of the " benev- 
olent colonization system." It appears from a Columbia paper, 
that one or two nights after the meeting, a mob collected, and 
partly tore down the dwelling of a black man ; they then pro- 
ceeded to the office of another black man, who had had the 
presumption to deal in lumber, " a species of labor white men 
had been accustomed to perform," broke open the windows and 
door, rifled the desk, scattered the papers in the street, and 
attempted to overturn the building. Surely the Society may 
reasonably anticipate the consent of the blacks to emigrate, 
when in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, such cogent 
arguments are used to obtain it. Were the Society governed, 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 57 

as it ought to be, by Christian principles, it would shrink from 
encouraging persecution by accomplishing its object, the expor- 
tation of its victims. It would say explicitly to the authors of 
these atrocities, " You shall gain nothing by your cruelty, through 
our instrumentality. We will not encourage your farther perse- 
cutions, by removing those whose consent you have obtained by 
such unjustifiable means ; we will not, to please you, 

' Keep the word of promise to the ear, 
And break it to the hope.' " 

But alas, it has virtually given official notice that it will transport 
all whose consent can be obtained, no matter by what barbarity. 
Hear the declaration of Mr. Gurley, the Secretary of the 
Society : 

" Should they (free blacks) be urged by any stress of cir- 
cumstances to seek an asylum beyond the limits of the United States, 
humanity and religion will alike dictate that they should be assisted to 
remove and establish themselves in freedom and prosperity in the land 
of their choice." Letter to gentlemen in Neio York. 

True it is the free blacks have been rendered by prejudice 
and persecution an ignorant and degraded class ; but they are 
still competent to appreciate the practical character of coloniza- 
tion philanthropy. 

The following resolutions, passed by a meeting of free blacks 
in New Bedford, in 1832, express the unanimous opinion of all 
their brethren who have intelligence to form, or courage to 
express an opinion on the subject. 

" Resolved, That in whatever light we view the Colonization Soci- 
ety, we discover nothing in it but terror, prejudice, and oppression. 
The warm and beneficent hand of philanthropy is not apparent in the 
system, but the influence of the Society on public opinion is more pre- 
judicial to the interests and welfare of the people of color in the United 
States, than slavery itself. 

" Resolved, That the Society, to effect its purpose, the removal of 
free people of color (not the slaves) through its agents, teaches the 
public to believe that it is patriotic and benevolent to withhold from us 
knowledge, and the means of acquiring subsistence ; and to look upon 
us as unnatural and illegal residents in this country, and thus by the 
force of prejudice, if not by law, endeavor to compel us to embark for 
Africa, and that too apparently by our own free will and consent." 



58 jay's works. 

And now let us ask what purpose is to be answered by perse- 
cuting this people, and keeping them ignorant and degraded ? 
Does any one believe that they will ever be removed from the 
country? They now amount to 302,000. In 16 years, 2,162 
have been sent away, some at first voluntarily, but many of them 
through coercion. But can cruelty, be it ever so extreme, 
furnish the Society with funds and ships sufficient to transport 
such a multitude ? They must, in spite of Connecticut and Vir- 
ginia persecution, remain with us. And if they are to remain 
with us, what conduct towards them do policy and religion pre- 
scribe ? Conduct precisely opposite to that pursued by the 
Society. We must instruct and elevate them, if we would not 
be incumbered by an ignorant and depraved population; we 
must treat them with justice and kindness, if we would avoid the 
displeasure of Him who has declai-ed, "Ye shall not oppress 
one another." 



CHAPTER III. 



INFLUENCE OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY ON AFRICA 

SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. 

Very many who now despair of extirpating slavery by means 
of the Society, continue to support it from a belief that it will 
confer rich blessings on Africa. These anticipated blessings are 
the suppression of the slave-trade, and the diffusion of religion 
and civilization. Let us at present inquire how far the first may 
reasonably be expected. 

In the declarations of the Society and its members on this 
subject, we shall find an astonishing medley of ignorance, rash 
assertion, and honest confession. 

" Sierra Leone has repaid Africa with still greater blessings ; her 
example, her influence and efforts, have given peace and security to the 
neighboring coast ; and who can estimate the extent of misery pre- 
vented, and of happiness conferred, to a population delivered from all 
the horrors of the slave-trade ? " Fifth Rep. p. 18. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 59 

" The line of coast from Sierra Leone to Cape Mount, is now under 
British protection ; and from Cape Mount to Trade Town, a distance of 
one hundred and twenty miles, the slave-trade cannot be prosecuted 
with the least hope of success. Afr. Rep., IT, p. 125 — Editorial. 

" Every colony of civilized inhabitants, established on that coast, and 
resolved to stop this trade to the extent of its means, will, at all events, 
put an end to it for a considerable distance. The colonies of Sierra 
Leone, and of Liberia, both produce this effect within their respective 
vicinities." Judge Blackford's Address to the Indiana Colonization 
Society. Afr. Rep., VI, p. 66. 

Of these compliments to Sierra Leone, it must be observed, 
one is paid officially by the Board of Managers, and the other 
by the Editor of the Repository. "We beg the reader to keep 
them in mind, as we shall hereafter inquire into their truth. We 
will now proceed to notice some assertions relative to the agency 
of the Liberia colony in suppressing the slave-trade. 

" In fact, the Colonization Society proposes the oxly means by 
which this accursed trade can ever be effectually stopped ; and, indeed, 
the Colony of Liberia, which this Society has planted, has already freed 
about two hundred and fifty miles of that coast j 'rom the ravages of these 
enemies of the human race." Address cf J. A. McKinney, 4th July, 
1830. Afr. Rep., VI, p. 231. 

" The flag that waves on Cape Montserado, proclaims to the slave 
trader that there is one spot, even in Africa, consecrated to freedom, 
one spot tohich his polluted foot shall not tread." Speech of G. Smith, 
V. Pres. 13th Jan. 1831. Uth Rep. 

11 Did we desire to put an end to these outrages upon humanity, (the 
slave-trade,) the Colonization Society offers itself as the only efficient 
means. The slaver has dared to show herself but once Avithin the lim- 
its of Liberia, and then she received the rewards of her temerity." 
Proceedings of N. Y. Col. Soc. 1832. 

" No slaver now dares come within one hundred miles of the settle- 
ment." Rev. Dr. Ilaivkes's Speech at Col. Meeting in New York, Octo- 
ber, 1833. 

" In less than thirteen years since its foundation, Liberia contains about 
3000 free and happy citizens, who have removed from oppression and 
bondage to the enjoyment of liberal institutions. The slave-trade has 
been utterly destroyed along its entire coast, formerly the 
most frequented mart of human flesh." Report of Philadelphia Young 
Men's Col. Soc. made 24th Feb. 1835, U. S. Gazette, 4th March, 1835. 

The above are specimens of the assertions which have been 
rashly made and credulously received. Let us now attend to 
the honest confession on this subject, and let the reader compare 
them with the foregoing assertions. That these confessions may 



60 jay's works. 

be better understood, it may be well to mention, that in the 
remarks accompanying a map of Liberia, published in the Gth 
vol. of the African Repository, it is stated, " The colony of Liberia 
extends from the Gallinas River to the territory of Kroo Settra, 
a distance of about 280- miles along the coast. The territory at 
present, (1830,) under the actual jurisdiction of the colony, 
extends from Grand Cape Mount, to Trade Town, a distance of 
about 150 miles." It appears, from the map, that the fas* limits 
embrace Cape Mount, Cape Montserado, on which is built the 
town of Monrovia, Bushrod Island, Bassa Cove, and Trade 
Town. 

" The records of the colony afford abundant and unequivocal testi- 
mony of the undiminished extent and atrocity of the slave-trade. 
From eight to ten, and even fifteen vessels have engaged at the same 
time in this odious traffic, almost within reach of the guns of Liberia, 
and as late as July, 1825, there were existing contracts for eight hundred 
slaves to be furnished in the short space of four months, witiiix 

EIGHT MILES OF MOXROVIA." Rep. X, p. 44, 1827. 

" From all I can learn, I am induced to believe, that the slave-trade 
is now carried on at the Gallinas, between Cape Mount and Sierra 
Leone, and to the leeward of this place, to a greater extent than it has 
been for many years." Letter from R. Randall, Agent at Liberia, 
28th Dec. 1828. Afr. Rep., V, p. 4. 

" Frequently within sight of the colonial factories, the slave-traders 
carry on their operations. The slave-trade never has been carried on 
with more activity, than it is at this time. There is established at Gal- 
linas, a regular slave-agent, who furnishes slaves to the slave-vessels. 
He receives his goods from trading vessels, and it is- said principally 
from an American vessel. He purchases large numbers of slaves, and 
furnishes the slave-vessels, which principally bring out specie. These 
vessels run up and down the coast until a convenient opportunity 
offers, when they run in and get their cargoes of slaves. Some of 
them are captured, and I have been informed, they have been bought 
afterwards by their original owners, and that the same vessel has fre- 
quently been bought and sold several times." Letter from R. Ran- 
dall, Agent at Liberia, Feb. 1829, Afr. Rep., V, p. 148. The same 
letter states the astounding fact, that " Mamma, the proprietress of 
Bushrod Island, just in front of Monrovia, whose town is not more 
than a quarter of a mile from our settlements on that island," was 
engaged in the slave-trade, and had sold several hundred — p. 150. 

"It is painful to state, that the managers have reason to believe that 
the slave-trade is still prosecuted to a great extent, and with circum- 
stances of undiminished atrocity. The fact that much was done by Mr. 
Ashmun to banish it from the territory, under the colonial jurisdiction, 
is unquestionably true, but it now exists even on the territory : and a 
little to the north and south of Liberia, it is seen in its true eharacters 
of fraud, and rapine, and blood." Rep., XIII, p. 13. — 1830 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 61 

Now, be it recollected, that it was after this official annuncia- 
tion by the Board of Managers, that the slave-trade existed even 
on the territory of Liberia, that the African Repository pub- 
lished without contradiction the vaunt of Mr. McKinney already 
quoted, that the colony had freed about two hundred and fifty 
miles of the coast from the slave-trade ! 

" I hope the Board will adopt some more effectual measures for sup- 
pressing the slave-trade within the territory of Liberia. Since the 
death of Don Miguel of Bassa, Peter Blanco, a Spanish slave-trader, 
for some years a resident in the Gallinas, has opened a slave factory at 
Grand Cape Mount. Such a thing ought not to be, as it is only 
forty-five miles from here. I am sorry to remark, that this abominable 
traffic is carried on with the utmost activity, all along the coast. Capt. 
Parker, during his trading at the Gallinas of about three weeks, saw 
no less than nine hundred shipped." Letter from A. D. Williams, 
Agent of the Society at Liberia, — 10th Sept. 1830. Afr. Rep., VI, p. 
275. 

" With undiminished atrocity and activity is this odious traffic now 
carried on all along the African coast ; slave factories are established 
in the immediate vicinity of the colony," &c. Rep., XIV, p. 11 — 1831. 

" The cursed practice of slave-trading, I regret to say, is still car- 
ried on between this and Sierra Leone." Letter of Rev. Mr. Cox ; Mon- 
rovia, 8th of April, 1833. Afr. Rep., IX, p. 252. 

" Bassa Cove was purchased* by Governor Pinney from King Joe 
Harris, the native sovereign of that fine harbor. It was bought at a 
moderate price, and without a drop of spirits. The negotiation wa 
effected in November last, 1834, and affords peculiar satisfaction to 
the friends of humanity, inasmuch as no less than 500 SLAVES had 
been shipped from there in October." N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, 
17th March, 1835. The same fact is stated in the " Colonization 
Herald," Ath April, 1835. 

Such are the refutations furnished by the Society itself, of all 
its boasts about suppressing the slave-trade ; and yet we are told 
that the Society is the only means of putting an end to the 
traffic ! It seems never to occur to these gentlemen, that the 
abolition of slavery would, as a matter of course, put an imme- 
diate and total stop to the tradcf 

* Bassa Cove is situated between Monrovia and Trade Town, and has there- 
fore been for years under the jurisdiction of the colony ; of course the pur- 
chase alluded to, must have been of the ])ossessio?i of the native occupants. 

t To what extent the importation of slaves in the United States is now 
carried, we are ignorant. In 1819, Mr. Middleton of South Carolina, stated 
on the floor of Congress, that, in his opinion, 13,000 Africans were annually 
smuggled into the Southern States. Mr. Wright of Virginia, estimated the 
number at 15.000. 

6* 



62 jay's works. 

But in what way does the Society expect to destroy this com- 
merce ? By planting colonies of ignorant and depraved negroes 
on the African coast. Every slave factory is of itself a colony, 
and for the most part, of intelligent white men ; and yet it is 
supposed, that negro colonists, who, when in America, were "the 
most depraved of the human race," will be too virtuous to yield 
to the temptations of a lucrative commerce. Why should the 
free negroes of America, who Mr. Clay assures us, are " of all 
descriptions of our population, the most corrupt, depraved, and 
abandoned," have, when removed to Liberia, a greater abhor- 
rence for the iniquity of the. slave-trade, than their brethren of 
Sierra Leone ? If the trade has been actually promoted by the 
latter colony, why will it be suppressed by the former? 

" The acting Attorney General at Sierra Leone declared, 1812, on 
the trial of certain persons for the infraction of the British abolition 
laws, that the town of Sierra Leone was ' the heart from which all the 
arteries and veins of the slave-trading system, had for years been ani- 
mated and supplied.' " Dr. Thorpe's Views of the present Increase of 
die Slave-trade, p. 71. 

The following facts are gathered from documents published 
by the British Parliament in 1832. Chief Justice JefFcott, of 
Sierra Leone, in 1830, delivered a charge to the Grand Jury, 
in which he declared that he had received credible information, 
that persons in the colony were engaged in aiding and abetting 
the slave-trade, and fitting out ships for the trade. He asserted, 
that the colony "established for the express purpose of suppress-. 
ing this vile traffic, was made a mart for carrying it on." He 
also stated, that within the last ten years, twenty-two thousand 
Africans had been located in the colony by the British Govern- 
ment, at an expense of nearly seven millions sterling, and that 
now there are not to be found in the colony above seventeen 
or eighteen thousand men ! These extraordinary and appall- 
ing declarations attracted the attention of the British Gov- 
ernment, who appointed a Commission to inquire into their 
truth. The Commissioners, in their report dated the 2Gth of 
October of the same year, state that, from the testimony taken 
before them, " they cannot but conclude that the nefarious sys- 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 63 

tern of kidnapping has prevailed in this colony to a much greater 
extent than was even alluded to in the charge of the Chief Jus- 
tice." From the testimony published with the report, it appears 
that the slave-vessels are in the habit of bringing out specie, 
for the purchase of supplies on the coast ; and that " Mr. Hilary 
Teague, who resides at the American settlement at Liberia, at 
Cape Mesurado, near the Gallinas, and who trades between 
that place (Gallinas, a slave-factory) and Sierra Leone, pur- 
chasing some goods from a Mr. Lake, a merchant in the colony, 
produced a bag containing about one thousand dollars, on which 
was marked the name of the Spanish schooner Manzanares. 
This vessel took in her cargo at the Gallinas, and was subse- 
quently condemned as a slave-ship." 

Here we find a colonist of Liberia trading at a slave-factory, 
and afterwards exhibiting 1000 dollars in specie, received in all 
human probability from a slave-ship. It is surely unreasonable to 
suppose that petty colonial merchants will refuse to sell supplies to 
slave-ships for specie. Indeed, every new colony on the coast, 
will, while slavery continues, give new facilities to this accursed 
commerce ; nor can the government at home prevent avaricious 
and unprincipled colonists from participating in it. No one can 
question the desire of Great Britain to purge Sierra Leone of 
this enormity, and yet we find the following statement in the 
English Monthly Review, for May, 1833. " One of the school- 
masters in Sierra Leone has been tried for selling some of his 
scholars. There were lately upwards of one hundred liberated 
Africans, who were kidnapped from Sierra Leone, and were 
conveyed to a place near the banks of the river Pongos. Here 
they were detained, till an opportunity occurred of re-shipping 
them as slaves." 



64 jay's works. 



CHAPTER IV. 

INFLUENCE OP THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY ON AFRICA 

DIFFUSION OF CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY. 

Although the Society is not a missionary institution, builds 
no churches, employs no ministers, and distributes no Bibles or 
tracts, yet it has persuaded the public that Liberia is a mission- 
ary establishment, and the radiating point from which a flood of 
light and holiness is to spread over Africa. So confidently and 
constantly has the missionary influence of the Society been 
asserted, that many of the members unfeignedly believe it, and 
their contributions are lavished, and their prayers are offered 
for the regeneration of Africa by emigrants, who, when in the 
United States, were denounced as " a curse and contagion wher- 
ever they reside." Let us attend to the stupendous objects the 
Society proposes to accomplish. 

" It would illuminate a continent. It would publish the name of 
Christ on the dark mountains of Africa, and the burning sands of the 
desert. It would kiudle up holiness and hope among uncounted tribes, 
whose souls are as black with crime and misery, as are the forms of 
matter that veil them." Afr. Re})., I, 16-4 — Editorial. 

" The little band at Liberia, who are spreading over the wilderness 
around them a strange aspect of life and beauty, are in every sense a 
missionary station. Every ship freighted from our shores with their 
suffering kindred, will be freighted also with the heralds of the cross. 
You will see the light breaking in upon one and another dark habita- 
tion of cruelty. The night of heathenism will depart. One tribe after 
another will come to the light of Zion, and the brightness of her rising. 
Ethiopia will awake and rise from the dust, and look abroad on the 
day and stretch forth her hand to God. The light will spread and 
kindle and brighten till all the fifty millions of Africa are 
brought to the glorious liberty of the sons of God." Address to the 
Kentucky Col. Society by Mr. Breckenridye. 

" They (the emigrants) go to unchain millions of slaves fettered 
in the bondage of death." Afr. Rep., IX, 198. 

" Like the star in the East, which announced the Saviour to the 
astonished Magi, it (the Society) points to the advent of the same 
Redeemer, coming in the power of his Spirit to roll away the darkness 
of a thousand generations." Speech of Mr. Frelinghuysen, Vice 
President. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY 65 

" This Society proposes to add another regenerated continent to 
our globe, and one hundred and fifty millions to the family of 
civilized man." Speech of Elliot Cresson before the Society. African 
Rep., IX, 360. 

The number of agents to be employed, are proportioned to 
the mighty work to be achieved. 

" The Society proposes to send out not one or two pious members of 
Christianity into a foreign land, but to transport annually, for an indefi- 
nite number of years in one view of its scheme, 6,000, in another 
56,000 missionaries of the descendants of Africa itself, to communicate 
the benefits of our religion and the arts." Mr. Clay's Spieech before 
Kentucky Col. Society. Afr. Rep., VI, 24. 

It will be observed that these missionaries are to communicate 
the benefits of both religion and the arts, and they are to be 
taken from two classes. The 6,000 are to be the annual increase 
of the free negroes; the 56,000 are to be manumitted slaves. 
The character of the first class is thus given by Mr. Clay, in the 
same speech in which he proposes their employment : 

" Of all descriptions of our population, and of either portion of the 
African race, the free people, of color are by far, as a class, the most 
corrupt, depraved, and abandoned." 

As this seems rather an unpromising character for teachers of 
religion, we presume this portion are to be confined to instruction 
in the arts ; and that the explanation of religious mysteries, and 
the inculcation of moral duties, are to be entrusted to the 56,000 
just released from bondage. Of the peculiar opportunities 
afforded them by the laws of the slave States, for fitting them- 
selves for their new vocation, we may speak hereafter. Of this 
" great company of preachers," about three thousand have already 
set up their tabernacle at Liberia. We might naturally suppose, 
that a colony of missionaries would be " a holy city," a sort of 
New Jerusalem, and such we are assured it is. We have heard 
of " the poetry of philanthropy," as applied to the sympathy 
expressed by abolitionists for the sufferings of the slaves ; the 
following extracts prove that there is a poetry of colonization 

which 

" Can give to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 



GG jay's works. 

" It (the colony) is already to the African tribes like a city set upon 
a hill, which cannot be hid. A tlwusand barbarians, who have long 
made merchandise of their brethren, and been regarded themselves as 
the objects of a bloody and accursed traffic, come within its gates, and 
are taught the doctrine of immortality, — the religion of the Son of God." 
8th Report, p. 14. — 1825. 

Here we have a solemn and official annunciation by the Board 
of Managers, of one of the most extraordinary facts ever 
recorded in the annals of missionary exertions. It appears from 
official documents, that at the date of this report, the whole 
number of emigrants could not have been more than 242, and 
had probably been reduced by death below that number ; and of 
this number, a large portion were, of course, women and chil- 
dren. Yet this little band of Christian missionaries, just 
escaped from the ignorance and vice in which they had been 
enveloped in America, and still struggling for existence in a 
sickly climate, and amid all the hardships and privations of a 
recent settlement in a savage land ; casting aside the fear of man, 
and with a faith almost miraculous in divine protection, admit 
within their gates an army of barbarians, four times the number 
of the whole of their little community, — barbarians too, who had 
long been engaged in a bloody and accursed traffic, making mer- 
chandise of their brethren ; and these barbarians, suddenly 
divested of their savage character, sit humbly at the feet of the 
newly -arrived messengers of Heaven, and the natives of Africa 
receive instruction in the doctrine of immortality and the reli- 
gion of the Son of God, from lips that had never uttered any 
other language than broken English ! It is singular that in the 
subsequent documents of the Society, w r e hear nothing farther of 
these thousand barbarians. How many became converts to the 
religion in which they were instructed ; how long their attendance 
on the missionaries were continued, and why it was afterwards 
totally suspended, are points on which no information has been 
vouchsafed to us. 

It is natural we should wish to know more of these wonderful 
teachers, and fortunately we are presented with the following 
picture of them by an eye-witness. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 67 

" The holy Author of our religion and salvation has made the hearts 
of a large proportion of these people, the temples of the Divine Spirit. 
I have seen the proudest and profanest foreigners that ever visited the 
colony, trembling with amazement and conviction, almost literally in 
the desci'iptive phraseology of St. Paul, find the secrets of their hearts 
made manifest, and falling down upon their faces, worship God, and 
report that God is in the midst of these people of a truth." Ashnun's 
letter, 31st December, 1825. Afr. Rep., II, 90. 

"We should certainly conclude from these accounts, that these 
holy men were blessed with 

" Composed desires, affections ever even, 
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heaven." 

Yet strange to tell, we are presented with the following perplex- 
ing statement, by the same eye-witness : 

" About twelve months since it (the colony) had entirely given way, 
as the committee are but too well apprised, to a blind and furious 
excitement of the worst passions, caused by a somewhat unfortunate 
policy operating on ignorance and invincible prejudice. During my 
absence for health, the people were obliged to taste some of the bitter 
fruits of anarchy, and by the singular mercy of God, only escaped 
those tragedies of blood, wliich can find no modern parallel but in the 
history of the civil murders and devastations of St. Domingo." Ash- 
man's letter, 15th January, 1825. Afr. Rep., I, 23. 

The excitement here alluded to, and its unhappy consequences, 
occurred, it will be seen by a comparison of dates, in 1824 ; 
and that wonderful moral change, which rendered the hearts of 
a large proportion of these people the temples of the Divine 
Spirit, must have been effected in 1825. Yet it was in the 
beginning of 1825, that the managers announced at their annual 
meeting at Washington, the marvellous fact of the instruction 
of the thousand barbarians within the gates of the colony, a fact 
which of course must have happened several months previous 
to the date of the report, and consequently during or about the 
time of the " furious excitement ! " 

In March, 1825, the editor of the African Repository gives 
us the following delightful intelligence : 

" The eye of the stranger is struck with the religious aspect of the 
settlement. He beholds on Cape Montserado, standing in lonely 
beauty, a Christian village. There flourish the virtues of the gospel, 
defended by the Almighty from the influences of paganism, cherished 
and refreshed by the dews of his grace." Afr. Rep., I, 5. 



68 jay's works. 

The secret of this surprising exhibition of Christian loveliness 
and purity, is thus explained : 

" It is well known that this little community is made up of selected 
individuals, and that the Board have ever required of* those seeking 
their patronage, satisfactory evidence that their morals were pure and 
their habits industrious. Hence this settlement has from its origin ex- 
hibited great decency and sobriety, respect for the Sabbath, and the 
other peculiar duties and ordinances of our religion. It has thus shed 
a benign and sacred light upon the heathen, and the feelings of the 
profane and lawless stranger as he treads upon Cape Montserado, are 
subdued into unwonted seriousness." Afr. Rep., IX, p. 10, 1826. 

But again we are perplexed by the assertion of the Governor 
of the colony. 

" For at least two years to come, a much more discriminating selec- 
tion of settlers must be made than ever has been — even in the first 
and second exjieditions by the Elizabeth and Nautilus in 1820 and 
1822 — or the prosperity of the colony will inevitably and rapidly de- 
cline." Ashmun , s Letter, 3d of March, 1828. Afr. Rep., IV, 8G. 

In the 11th Report the managers assure us : 

" No village perhaps, in our own land, exhibits less which is offen- 
sive, and more that is gratifying to the eye of the Christian, than 
the village of Monrovia. Crimes are almost unknown, and the uni- 
versal respect manifested for the Sabbath, and the various institutions 
and duties of Christianity, have struck the natives with surprise, and 
excited the admiration of foreigners." Afr. Rep., XI, p. 14, 1828. 

But how are we to reconcile this with the following state- 
ments ? 

" Permit me to say, sir, there must be a great revolution in this colony, 
before it can have a salutary influence on the surrounding natives ; 
that is, before it can have a moral influence over them." Letter from 
Rev. G. M. Erskine, 3d of April, 1830. Afr. Rep., VI, 121. 

" We stand in much need of a work-house and some acres of land 
enclosed, for confining licentious females, and other disorderly and 
lazy persons." Letter from A. D. Williams, Agent, 10th of Sept., 1830. 
Afr. Rep., VI, 275. 

" There are several enterprising merchants here. It is not, how- 
ever, a favorable spot for small storekeepers and wandering pedlars, 
who, I am told, generally become stripped of what they may have got, 
and in wandering about in the interior for small traffic, disgust the 
natives by their immoralities." Letter from Lieut. Page to Sec. of Navy, 
9th of April, 1832. Afr. Rep., VIII, 141. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 69 

" With respect to the character of the people composing this expe- 
dition, I regret to be compelled to state, that they are, with the excep- 
tion of the Pages from Virginia, and a few others, the lowest and most 
abandoned of their class. Our respectable colonists themselves are 
becoming alarmed at the great number of ignorant and abandoned 
characters that have arrived here within the last twelve months." 
Letter from Dr. Mechlin, Agent, Sept., 1832. Afr. Rep., VIII, 298. 

" Let them (the friends of the Society in America) know, that to ex- 
tend knowledge and promote sound piety, a quire of paper is at the 
present moment of more worth than a Bible. Bibles and tracts have 
been sent here, and either used as ivaste paper, or made food for 
worms. Why ? Not because the people despise either, but because we 
have not a reading population. Until this is secured, Bibles tvould be 
of more value in China." Letter from J. B. Pinney, Agent, 1th of 
March, 1834. 

On the 17th of June, 1833, Mr. Gurley, Secretary of the So- 
ciety, in a speech at a colonization meeting in New York, haz- 
arded the following most extraordinary assertion, — "Ten thou- 
sand natives had placed themselves under the protection of 
the colony, receiving from it instruction in civilization" 

The Society, at its annual meeting on the 20th of January, 
1834, unanimously 

" Resolved, that this Society is cheered in its enterprise by the benefi- 
cent effects which its operations have upon the natives of Africa it- 
self." Afr. Rep., IX, 360. 

On the 20th of February, 1834, the Rev. Mr. Pinney, Agent 
at Liberia, thus writes from the colony : 

H The colonists are very ignorant of everything about the interior. 
Except the tribes along the coast, nothing at all is known, and of them, 
little but their manner of traffic. Nothing has been done for the natives 
hitherto by the colonists, except to educate a few who were in their 
families in the capacity of servants." 

Mr. Pinney appears not to have been acquainted with the 
fact, that " a thousand barbarians " had been taught the doctrine 
of immortality within the gates of the colony, or that " ten thou- 
sand natives " had received instruction in civilization ! 

Had any missionary society been guilty of such extravagant 
anticipations and such gross and palpable contradictions, the 
whole community would have joined in loading it with ridicule 
and odium. 



70 jay's works. 

It is deeply to be regretted that some distinguished coloniza- 
tionists have of late attempted to lead the public to hope that 
in future no emigrants but such as are of good moral character 
will be permitted to go to Liberia. It is difficult to reconcile 
such an attempt with moral rectitude, unless it be accompanied 
with a total and avowed abandonment of colonization as a means 
of relieving the country from the nuisance of a free colored pop- 
ulation, and from the guilt and curse of slavery. Of the gross 
inconsistency, (not to use a harsher term,) of colonizationists 
on this subject, the proceedings of a colonization meeting in 
Cincinnati, October 31st, 1834, afford a striking example. On 
motion of the Rev. Dr. Beecher, the following resolution was 
unanimously adopted : 

" Resolved, that the establishment of colonies in Africa by the selec- 
tion of colored persons who are moral, industrious, and temperate, is 
eminently calculated of itself to advance the cause of civilization and 
religion among the benighted native population of that continent; as 
well as to afford facilities to the various missionary societies for the 
prosecution of their pious designs." 

This resolution would be utterly without point or meaning, 
were it not laudatory of the plans of the Colonization Society ; 
and no person of common intelligence would conjecture from 
the resolution, that the " selection " mentioned in it was utterly 
at variance with, and directly opposed to, the avowed objects of 
the Society. Slavery in our country cannot be abolished by 
colonization, without removing more than two millions of slaves ; 
and how is it possible to remove this number, and yet select for 
colonists only " the moral, industrious, and temperate ? " Nev- 
ertheless, the meeting 

" Resolved, that the friends of humanity and the friends of God 
should cherish the Colonization Society, because of its influence to 
abolish slavery, and advance the best interests of the African 
race." 

Pages might be quoted to show that the professed ultimate 
object of the Society, is to remove the whole colored population 
to Africa, without any selection whatever. In 1824, a Commit- 
tee of the Board, in an official report, declared that the national 
interest 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 71 

" Required that the ivhole mass of free persons of color, and those 
■who may become such with the consent of their owners, should be 
progressively removed from us as fast as their own consent can be 
obtained, and as the means can be found for their removal and for their 
proper establishment in Africa." Afr. Rep., VII, p. 113. 

" But the Colonization Society hopes for, and aims at much more — 
the abolition of slavery, and the removal of all the black people 
from the United States." Proceedings of New York Col. Soc, 2d 
Anniversary. 

We have remarked that expediency is unhappily the gov- 
erning principle of the Society, and to this principle must be 
attributed the recent talk about select emigrants. 

Funds are low, and temperance is popular, and all at once we 
hear that the colonies in Liberia are to be temperance colonies ; 
and that the emigrants are to be " moral, industrious, and tem- 
perate." And so we are to send the good negroes away, and 
keep the bad at home. And yet, by transporting the few moral, 
industrious and temperate individuals that can be selected in 
a vicious and ignorant population of between two or three mil- 
lions, we are to abolish slavery! Surely colonizationists, by 
holding such language, pay but a poor compliment to their own 
candor, or the common sense of the community. The truth is, 
there never has been, and never will be, a selection made.* 
The two last cargoes sent by the Society, were, by the public 
confession of Mr. Breckenridge, " two cargoes of vagabonds." 

* Since the first edition of this work, a public meeting has been held, (17th 
March,) in New Orleans, preparatory to the departure of some manumitted 
slaves to Africa. At this meeting, the intended emigrants were arrayed before 
the audience, and the agent of the American Colonization Society informed 
them that the Society was " unalterably determined to send to the colony none 
but such as are willing to pledge themselves to total abstinence from ardent 
spirits." He also announced that one negro had been rejected as an emi- 
grant " on account of his habits of intoxication." A pledge was then read 
to the negroes, and they were ordered to signify their assent by rising, which 
they accordingly did. See Neio York Journal of Commerce, 1st oj April, 
1835 

This New Orleans scene will afford no gratification to the friends of tem- 
perance ; nor will it permanently advance the cause of colonization. In a 
population universally addicted to intoxication, ONE is selected as a public 
example of the abhorrence of the Society to drunkenness, and is shut out 
from the promised land, not for refusing to take the pledge, but on account 
of his intemperate habits ; while his companions are required to promise total 
abstinence, under the penalty of spending their lives in bondage. 

If the Society wishes to promote temperance, instead of extorting pledges 
from miserable slaves, let them exercise the power they possess of excluding 
all intoxicating liquors from their colony. 



72 jay's works. 

Will it be pretended that all the coercion exerted to induce the 
blacks to emigrate, operates only on the good ? or that it is the 
drunken and profligate who find favor in the eyes of coloniza- 
tionists, and are permitted to remain in peace and quietness at 
home ? 

The Society itself has borne abundant testimony to the 
depravity of the free blacks, and its friends, with scarcely an 
exception, zealously maintain that the slaves are unfit for free- 
dom ; and yet, as we have seen, it is proposed to transport them 
all to Africa. And now we would ask, on what principle of 
common sense, on what record of experience does the Society 
expect that a population, which, in a land of Bibles and churches, 
is sunk in vice and ignorance, will, when landed on the shores 
of Africa, and immersed in all the darkness of paganism, become 
on a sudden a Christian society, and employed in teaching 
thousands of barbarians " the doctrine of immortality, the religion 
of the Son of God ! " 

Pious colonizationists would themselves be shocked at the 
proposal of disgorging on the islands of the Pacific the tenants 
of our prisons, under the pretext of instructing the natives in 
" religion and the arts ; " and yet they flatter themselves that 
emigrants, who, by their own showing, are less intelligent, and 
scarcely less guilty than our prisoners, will, by undergoing a salt 
water baptism, land in Africa wholly regenerated, and qualified, 
as heralds of the cross, to convert millions and millions to the 
faith of the Gospel. So monstrous an absurdity can be the 
offspring only of a deep and sinful prejudice. Hatred to the 
blacks can alone delude us into the belief that in banishing them 
from our soil, we are doing God service. "Were it not for this 
hatred, we should feel and acknowledge, that Christianity must 
be propagated in Africa, as elsewhere, by faithful and enlight- 
ened missionaries. If the climate or other circumstances require 
that such missionaries be of African descent, it is our duty to 
educate them before we send them. But, alas, instead of 
educating negroes, we wish to keep them in ignorance, and yet 
pretend that our miisances will, in Africa, be converted into 
blessings. But if colonizationists are so perverse as to believe 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 73 

that a bitter fountain will send forth sweet waters, let them 
contemplate the following picture of Sierra Leone, drawn by a 
devoted friend to the Society : 

" Including the suburbs of the town, (Free Town,) there arc some 
six or eight thousand inhabitants, about eighty of whom are white. 
The morals of Free Town are fearfully bad. As in colonies, too 
generally where the restraints of home, of friends, of those we love, 
and those we fear, are broken off, licentiousness prevails to a most 
lamentable degree. The abomination is not committed under the 
cover of midnight, nor am I speaking of the natives whose early habits 
might j)lead some apology for them ; it is done at noonday, and to use 
a figure, the throne as well the footstool has participated in the evil ; 
and the evil, I am told, is increasing. Sanctioned as it is by those who 
take the lead in the Society, and who ought to form the morals of the 
colony, avarice has been added to lust, and those who otherwise might 
have been virtuous, have sold themselves to work wickedness. Human- 
ity and philanthropy, which have struggled so hard and so long to help 
this degraded country, must weep and cover itself with sackcloth, to see 
its best interests so wickedly perverted." Letter from Rev. M. B. Cox, 
Methodist Missionary in Liberia. Afr. Rep., IX, p. 209. 



There is still an important consideration which does not seem 
to have engaged the attention of colonizationists. It is proposed 
to transport to Africa, our whole colored population, and of 
course to found a mighty nation in Liberia. But how long will 
this nation remain dependent on the Board of Managers at 
"Washington? Instead of millions, suppose the colony to be 
only ten thousand strong. Who is to govern it, who defend it, 
and tight its battles ? Were the colony now to declare indepen- 
dence, how would the Society reduce it to subjection ; and if 
not subjected, what becomes of the mighty plan of making it the 
receptacle of our slaves and free negroes ? Suppose the col- 
onists, like their brethren of Sierra Leone, engage in the slave- 
trade, who is to punish or control them ? Suppose in time they 
find the influx of emigrants inconvenient, and refuse to admit 
them, who shall coerce them ? 

On the whole, the system of African colonization is full of 
absurdities, and contradictions, and evils, which are not seen 
because they are concealed by a veil of prejudice. It is a system 
which strikingly exposes the folly of human wisdom, when 

7* 



74 jay's works. 

opposed to the precepts of the Gospel of Christ. Had America 
possessed that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of true 
wisdom, slavery would long since have ceased from among us, 
and our colored brethren, treated with Christian kindness, 
instead of being ignorant and degraded, would have been valued 
and useful citizens ; and our churches, instead of uniting to send 
" cargoes of vagabonds " to Africa, under the guise of Christian 
missionaries, would have aided the descendants of her sons, 
furnished by us with all the stores of human learning, and 
selected for their piety and zeal, in proclaiming the glad tidings 
of salvation throughout that benighted continent. 



CHAPTER V. 



INFLUENCE OP THE SOCIETY ON SLAVERY. 

In 1822, a committee was appointed by a public meeting in 
Boston, to report on the character and tendency of the American 
Colonization Society. The committee, in their report, remark : 

" It is only from the belief which the committee very cordially enter- 
tain that the active members of the American Colonization Society are 
perfectly disposed to frame their measures with reference to the entire 
suppression of the slave-trade, and to a gradual and prudent, but com- 
plete emancipation of those now held in slavery, that we can 
regard the Society as having any claim upon the sympathy or assistance 
ofthe people of New England." 

Such were the expectations by which Northern philanthropists 
were at first induced to countenance the Society. There is 
scarcely to be found a colonization article or speech that does not 
warrant these expectations, that does not promise the exertion by 
the Society of a mighty moral influence in abolishing slavery. 

Now it is obvious that such an influence must operate in one 
or more of the following ways, viz. : 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 75 

1. On the conscience of the slave-holder, convincing him that 
slave-holding is sinful, and that his Maker requires him to lib- 
erate his slaves. 

2. On the reputation of the slave-holder, making him feel 
that his standing in the community is lowered by keeping his 
fellow-men in bondage, and enjoying, without compensation, the 
fruits of their labor. 

3. On the interests of the slave-holder, persuading him that 
emancipation would enhance his property. ■ 

4. On the fears of the slave-holder, alarming him for the safety 
of himself and family. 

5. By the power of example, showing the slave-holder, by the 
conduct of others whom he esteems, what his own ought to be. 

We flatter ourselves that we shall prove that the influence of 
the Society is in no degree exerted in any one of these ways, 
except the last. Of the extent of this last mode, we shall speak 
hereafter. 

It will not be pretended that the Society addresses itself to 
the conscience of the slave-holder. Such addresses are not 
authorized by the constitution, and have been repeatedly dis- 
claimed by the Society. But when the Society disclaims appeals 
to the conscience, it disclaims the most powerful of all means for 
the removal of slavery. 

" We never made any headway," says a British writer, " in the 
abolition of the slave-trade, and of slavery, till it was taken up 
by the religious men, prosecuted as a concern of the soul, with 
reference to eternity, and by motives drawn from the cross of 
Christ." 

Mr. G. Smith, a most estimable officer of the Society, remarked, 
in a temperance address : " I never heard that temperance had 
any success any where, unless the appeals in its favor were made 
directly to the consciences of the rum-dealers. Strike out these, 
and it is in vain that you seek for other means to propel the tri- 
umphant car of temperance. Hitch to that car, health, economy, 
expediency, the public good, what you please, if you leave out 
the appeal to men's consciences, you have, as we say at the 
North, a weak team." And surely a more weak, broken-winded, 



76 jay's works. 

good-for-nothing team, than colonization, was never hitched to 
the car of abolition. How, and in what direction, does this team 
draw ? It is amusing to observe how wary colonizationists are 
of approaching this question. They dwell on the political evils 
of slavery, and call on religion and patriotism for aid in remov- 
ing them ; and when, in breathless attention, we are waiting to 
learn by what process the moral influence of the Society is to 
deliver us from the curse of slavery, in a moment the scene 
shifts to Africa, and we are entertained with visions of its future 
bliss and glory. It may be safely asserted, that not one coloni- 
zation writer or orator in a hundred, ever attempts to explain 
how the Society is to induce masters to liberate their slaves. 
Occasionally, however, the effort is made. Mr. Knapp, in a 
speech before the Society, thus explains the matter : 

" In my opinion, it (slavery) may be cured in less time than it lias 
been growing up. Open once the facilities of emigration — show an 
object for it,°and, like any other business, it will increase to any extent 
we may wish. The natural world has yielded her impossibilities, as 
they were thought, to the efforts of enlightened men ; why should we 
not be as successful in the moral ? A fair and permanent road is now 
built over the Alps, the passage of which was once considered as suffi- 
cient to give ininiortality to the successful adventurer." 10th Rep., p. 6. 

So, it seems, that if we open once the facilities of emigration, 
that is, provide ships, &c., the planters will at once call in their 
slaves from their cotton and sugar fields, and ship them to Afri- 
ca ; but why they will do so, is a problem, which, after all, Mr. 
Knapp omits to solve. 

" This work, (colonization,) as it advances, tends to improve the 
character, and elevate the condition of the free people of color, and 
thus to take away one standing and very influential argument against 
both individual and general abolition. This, to an unprejudiced mind, 
is one of the most obvious tendencies of African colonization. Elevate 
the character of the free people of color ; let it be seen that they are 
men indeed ; let the degrading associations which follow them be broken 
up by the actual improvement of their character as a people, and negro 
slavery must wither and die." New Haven Christian Spectator for 
March, 1833. 

As the Society utterly disclaims all attempts to elevate the 
free blacks here, the meaning of the above is, that when the 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 77 

slave-holder in America learns that black men in Liberia are 
intelligent and respectable, he will release his slaves from their 
fetters. We wonder if similar intelligence from the West Indies 
will produce the same effect ; if so, it may be obtained at far 
less expense of time and money, than from Africa. 

Let us now attend to the process by which an excellent vice 
president of the Society supposes slavery is to be abolished. 

" Let Africa begin to enter upon the redemption of her character, 
which guilty Christian nations have for centuries combined to keep 
down to the lowest point of degradation, and she will begin to be 
respected, and the condition of her outcast children on our shores, will 
awaken a livelier sympathy. And when Africa shah have put on the 
garment of civilization, and the influence of her regeneration shall be 
felt throughout this land, our most tenacious and obstinate slave-holder 
will shrink from the relation he bears to her children. The poor crea- 
ture whom he formerly regarded as a few removes above the brute, will 
now present himself before the new associations of his master's mind, 
as his fellow-man and his equal, and the slave will be permitted to go 
free." Speecli+of G. Smith, Esq., Uth Rep., p. 11. 

It would seem, that at the close of the fourteenth year of the 
Society's labors, Africa had not yet, in the opinion of Mr. Smith, 
begun to enter upon the redemption of her character. How 
soon a beginning is to be made, and in how many years, or cen- 
turies, the Society expects to complete the work of dressing 
Africa in the garment of civilization, we are not informed. But 
when this work shall have been finished, and when it shall have 
produced a general sensation (how strong and of what kind we 
know not) throughout America, then the motions of the sugar- 
mill and cotton-gin are to be arrested, and the fetters are to fall 
from the slave. Why ? Because the commands of God, and the 
interests and safety of the master, require it ? No ; but because 
the master will then make the discovery, that his poor slave, but 
little removed as he is from the brute, is still his fellow-man and 
his ecpial ! This is certainly a most marvellous process for 
teaching the Southern planters a plain, simple truth ; a truth, 
too, which was proclaimed by their own representatives, so long 
ago as 1776, in the Declaration of Independence, but which 
unfortunately seems not to have had the influence which Mr. 
Smith supposes it will exert, when taught by the regeneration of 
Africa. 



78 jay's works. 

We may now judge a little of the elements of that moral in- 
fluence which a Christian Society exerts against slavery. Con- 
science and the word of God, death, judgment, and eternity, 
enter not into its composition. 

" The Society," declares one of its vice presidents, " tends, and may 
powerfully tend, to rid us gradually and entirely in the United States, 
of slaves and slavery." R. G. Harper. See lAth Rep., p. 23. 

Let us now see how gradually this riddance is to be effected. 

" We have never supposed that the Society's plan could be accom- 
plished in a few years ; but, on the contrary, have boasted that it will 
demand a century for its fulfilment." Mr. Fitzhugh, Vice President. 
Afr. Rep., IV, p. 344. 

It may seem singular that philanthropists should exult in the 
conviction that their plan for doing good would require a century 
for its fulfilment ; but the benevolence of the " colonization sys- 
tem " is peculiar. 

" There are those, sir, who ask, ' And could not a quarter of a cen- 
tury cease and determine these two great evils,' (free blacks and slaves ?) 
You and I, my dear sir, on whom the frost of time has fallen rather 
perceptibly, would say a century." Speech of Mr. Custiss. lith 
Rep., p. viii. 

" The sudden abolition of slavery in a community where it existed 
to any considerable extent, would be pernicious. But this is danger 
which can occasion no alarm, admitting that the colonization scheme 
contemplates the ultimate abolition of slavery, yet that result could 
only be produced by the slow and gradual operation of centuries." 
Afr. Rep., I, p. 217. 

" It is not expected to remove so great an evil as two millions of 
slaves suddenly : if it can be accomplished in a century, it will be as 
much as the most sanguine of our friends ought to expect." Judge 
Best's Address to the Indiana Col. Soc. Afr. Rep., IX, p. 71. 

" It is not the work of a day, nor a year ; it is not the work of one 
time, nor of two ; but it is one which will now commence, and may 
continue for ages." View of Slavery, by Humanitas, a Colonization 
advocate. Baltimore, 1822. 

Thus we see that the continuance of slavery, with all its 
licentiousness, ignorance, and suffering, for at least a century to 
come, is calmly contemplated by zealous and distinguished colon- 
izationists. But still the Society expects ultimately to abolish 
slaveiy. Let us therefore inquire what it must effect to fulfil 
this expectation. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 79 

The increase of our slave population, from the census of 1820 
to that of 1830, was 472,568. Estimating the future increase 
at the same ratio, it will be for the ten years ending in 1840, 
617,263 ; and for the ten years ending in 1850, 806,762. The 
annual increase is now upwards of 54,000, and the daily excess 
of births over deaths, 147. In 1850, it will be 80,676 annually, 
and 221 daily ! 

From this statement it will be perceived what must be the 
power of the " moral influence " of the Society to remove to 
Africa merely the annual increase of our slave population ; and 
hence we may judge of its ability to deliver the country from 
slavery. In forming an opinion on this subject, we shall be fur- 
ther aided by inquiring what advantages the Society has enjoyed, 
and what have been the results of its labors. 

Never has any voluntary association received in an equal 
degree the applause and patronage of both state and church. 
Men of all parties, and of all religions, and of no religion, have 
zealously espoused its cause. On the roll of its officers, are 
emblazoned the names of the most popular leaders of rival poli- 
tical parties. The Legislatures of fourteen States have passed 
resolutions in its favor. The highest ecclesiastical judicatories, 
of almost every religious denomination, have recommended it to 
the patronage of their churches. Politicians have declaimed, 
ministers have preached, and Christians have prayed in its behalf. 
To promote its objects, tiberal contributions have been made 
from the coffers of the nation, and the pockets of individuals. 
Under color of providing for the removal to Africa, of about three 
hundred recaptured negroes, the general government appro- 
priated 130,000 dollars, which were "applied to an object affil 
iated to our design, and essentially, though collaterally, contrib- 
uting to its advancement ; the sending out of agents of the 
United States to the African coast, and the transportation of 
persons in the public ships. By these means we have obtained, 
in fact, all we could have expected to gain, had Congress de- 
cided to aid our enterprise." Speech of Gen. Harper, 7th Rep., 
p. 12. 

Since 1820, $220,449 have been poured into the treasury. If 
to this be added $45,645, the debt due by the Society at the 



80 jay's works. 

beginning of 1834, we have a total of $2GG,094 expended, inde- 
pendent of the $130,000 paid by government. Such have been 
the pecuniary means of the Society ; and now let us see how far 
its " moral influence " has progressed in freeing the country of 
its millions of slaves. Since December, 181 G, when the Society 
was organized, to the present time (1st of January, 1835,) it 
has transported eight hundred and nine manumitted slaves to 
Africa — equal to the increase of the slave population for Jive and 
a half days ! But it will be said that some years elapsed before 
the Society was in a capacity to transport emigrants. Be it so ; 
let us inquire, then, how many manumitted slaves have been 
sent out the last five years. In 1830-33, six hundred and 
sixty-six were transported; in 1834, none,* making a removal 
on an average, of less than the increase of one day in each year ! 
In the eighteenth year of the Society's existence, it finds itself 
compelled to pause and rest, after the mighty effort of arresting 
the increase of the slave population for five days and a half. 

Such are the results of the moral influence about which we 
have heard so much. And upon whom has this influence oper- 
ated ? Surely upon those who were most within its sphere, the 
presidents, vice presidents, and managers of the Society. Unfor- 
tunately, facts do not confirm this very natural supposition. 
Judge Washington was President of the Society, from its first 
organization, till his death in 1829. In a letter to the Society, 
he observed : " "We may fairly hope it will lead to the sure but 
gradual abolition of slavery." Afr. Rep., VII, p. 20. 

Whatever were the hopes of this gentleman, he was personally 
beyond the reach of the Society's moral influence. In a pub- 
lished letter in 1821, after stating that his slaves had got the 
idea that as nephew to General Washington, or President of the 
Colonization Society, he could not hold them in bondage, he 
adds, " I called the negroes together in March last, and after 
stating to them what I had heard, I assured them that I had no 
intention to give freedom to any of them." 

* In 1834, the Philadelphia Society sent out one hundred and ten slaves, 
manumitted by the will of their master, who also left two thousand two 
hundred dollars for their transportation. The Society, at the same time, 
gave a passage to fourteen emigrants for the Parent Institution, free of 
oxpense. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 81 

The judge was as good as his word. He did indeed shortly 
after part with fifty-four of his slaves, but it was not to the agent 
of the Society, to be transported to Liberia, but to a slave- 
dealer, to be shipped to New Orleans. Mr. Carroll, a large 
slave-holder, succeeded to the presidential chair, but for aught 
that appears to the contrary, neither he nor Mr. Madison, the 
present incumbent, ever liberated a single slave. Mr. Clay, a 
vice president, publicly intimated that he did not intend to send 
his slaves to Africa. Mr. Fitzhugh, another vice president, the 
proprietor of " numerous slaves," speaking of slavery, remarked : 
"No plea can be urged in justification of its continuance but the 
plea of necessity." Afr. Rep., V, p. 354. 

The will of this gentleman, who died in 1830, is a singular 
comment on this plea of necessity. The following extract is 
given in the African Repository under the head of 

PHILANTHROPIC EXAMPLE. 

"After the year 1850, I leave all my negroes unconditionally free, 
with the privilege of having the expenses of their removal to whatever 
places of residence they may select, defrayed. If they consent to go 
to the Colony, (Liberia,) they are to be paid fifty dollars each on their 
arrival." Afr. Rep., VI, 247. 

It will be perceived that the testator believed in the " neces- 
sity " of requiring his slaves to toil for tiventy years for his heirs, 
after he himself was in the grave, before they could be permit- 
ted to labor for themselves ; and also the necessity of leaving 
the children who might be born of these slaves in the twenty 
years, in interminable bondage, for it will be observed that the 
prospective manumission is confined to Mr. Fitzhugh's " negroes," 
and not to the children to be hereafter born. Should this phil- 
anthropic example be universally followed, in how many centu- 
ries would slavery cease ? 

Mr. Custiss, well known as a zealous advocate of the Society, 
in a speech before it thus exclaims : 

" Lend us your aid to strike the fetters from the slave, and to spread 
the enjoyment of unfettered freedom over the whole of our favored 
and happy land." 1th Report, p. 13. 



82 jay's works. 

Had Mr. Custiss applied to the Board for a passage for his 
slaves to Liberia, the boon would unquestionably have been 
granted. But such a boon was not the aid he desired. In the 
New York Commercial Advertiser of January 31, 1829, it is 
stated that Philip Lee, the son of General "Washington's favor- 
ite servant, is the slave of Mr. Custiss, the adopted son of 
Washington : that Philip is a pious, faithful, and in all respects 
an exemplary man, and has a wife and children, to whom he is 
tenderly attached ; and that $1,000 are required to deliver 
Philip and his family from slavery. " Much interest has been 
excited in the District of Columbia, where it is supposed one 
half of the sum required will be raised." The paper farther 
states, that $121 had been subscribed in New York. 

In the appendix at the 15th Report, p. 41, is a list of per- 
sons who have manumitted slaves to be sent to Liberia. The 
list does not profess to give all, but contains fifteen names, and 
it is remarkable that the name of any one present or former 
officer of the American Colonization Society is not to be found 
among them, with the exception of Mr. Fitzhugh, who is in- 
cluded, on account of his testamentary devise. 

"We will not assert that no officer of the Society has ever 
parted with a slave that he might go to the Colony : but we do 
say, that although our acquaintance with colonization documents 
is not superficial, we have met with no record of such a " phil- 
anthropic example." 

If such be the impotency of the moral influence of the Soci- 
ety upon its officers, its orators and advocates, what will be its 
power on slave-holders generally ? 

But let us suppose, what we all know to be untrue, that every 
slave-holder in our country is in very deed anxious to get rid of 
his slaves, and that the whole slave population is now and will 
continue to be at the disposal of the Society, and we ask, can 
this population be transported to Africa, and there maintained ? 
"We have seen that before any impression can be made on its 
present amount, its increase, rising to more than fifty-four thou- 
sand annually, must be removed. But it is surely not to be re- 
moved, merely to perish by famine in the wilderness. In the 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 83 

ordinary calculations of the expense of carrying these people to 
Africa, they seem to he considered only as articles of freight, 
Which are to be delivered at Liberia at so much per piece. 
Thirty dollars are usually assumed as the cost of a passage ; 
but let it be recollected that after they arrive, houses, imple- 
ments of husbandry, food and clothing for at least one year must 
be provided for them. It is with difficulty a new colony can 
provide for its own maintenance, and it is folly to suppose that 
it can also provide for an annual influx of fifty thousand emi- 
grants, emigrants too, sunk in brutal ignorance, unaccustomed to 
supply then* own wants, and bringing with them nothing but the 
rags on their backs. Place fifty thousand such persons in the 
wilds of Africa, and they would be far more likely to starve 
before the end of a year, than they would be at that time to 
furnish the necessaries of life to fifty thousand more emigrants. 
The Colony is now poor, and has only about three thousand in- 
habitants, and it is admitted (see 15th Rep., p. 10,) that an ad- 
dition of one thousand emigrants in any one year since its 
establishment would have been fatal to it. How many years 
then must elapse, before it can receive fifty-four thousand every 
year ? and when that period arrives, wliat will then be the annu- 
al increase ? Admitting the whole marine and the whole treas- 
ury of the United States to be surrendered to the Society, 
does any sane man believe that Liberia can be brought to such 
a state of cultivation as to maintain an annual accession to her 
population of fifty-four thousand in less than twenty-five years ? 
But in the year 1860 the annual increase of slaves, instead of 
fifty-four thousand, will be one hundred and four thousand ; and 
unless the Society will then be able to transport more than this 
mighty multitude, each year, it will not even diminish the pres- 
ent amount of the slave population ! 

In supposing the slave-holders ready to colonize their slaves, 
we have given full effect to the reiterated assertions of coloniza- 
tionists on this subject. These gentlemen are fond of repre- 
senting the Southern masters as unfortunately burthened with a 
grievous load, which they are impatient to shake off; and from 
which no other human agency than the Society can possibly 



84 jay's works. 

relieve them. Granting the premises, we see what sort of re- 
lief the Society is capable of affording. We have intentionally 
removed one difficulty, that we might consider another. Let us 
now reverse the supposition, and admitting the ability of the 
Society immediately to transport to Africa, and there maintain 
all the slaves in the United States, let us inquire hoio the con- 
sent of the masters is to be obtained. 

Let it be remembered that the Society has studiously avoided 
every measure to obtain such consent, and boasts that it ad- 
dresses arguments to no master. But if we are to believe col- 
onizationists, no arguments are necessary to induce the masters 
to liberate their slaves. Our sympathy is perpetually demanded, 
not for the slave, but his unfortunate master, who is imploring 
the Society to deliver him from the curse entailed upon him by 
his ancestors ! So far from slave-holders wishing to abolish sla- 
very, they are endeavoring to transmit it as a precious inheri- 
tance to their latest posterity. As we have already observed, 
we do not solicit the reader's belief, in any assertion we may 
make, until Ave have demonstrated its truth ; and we assert that 
there is a general disposition among slave-holdei's, to perpetuate 
slavery. "We know, and cheerfully acknowledge, that there are 
exceptions, but we believe they are exceedingly rare. The 
whole tendency of slave legislation is to rivet the chains of its 
victims. Hence the cruel obstacles it raises to manumission, 
and the wicked efforts it makes to brutalize the human mind. 
But not contented with holding their own slaves with an iron 
grasp, they have striven, and with woful success, to extend the 
curse beyond their own borders. When Missouri was to be ad- 
mitted into the Union, every slave representative in Congress, 
without one solitary exception, colonizationist or not, voted to 
render it a slave State. So anxious was Virginia to strengthen 
the slave interest, that rebellion and civil war were the price she 
was willing to pay for another mart in human flesh. Her House 
of Delegates 

" Resolved, that the General Assembly of Virginia will support the 
good people of Missouri in their just rights, and admission into the 
Union, and will cooperate with them in resisting with manly 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 85 

fortitude any attempt which Congress may make to impose re- 
straints or restrictions on the price of their admission, not authorized 
by the great principles of the Constitution, and in violation of their 
rights, liberty, and happiness !" 

General Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, in a public 
address, delivered in 1824, maintained that slavery, as it exists 
in that State, is 

" No greater or more unusual evil than befalls the poor in general ; that 
its extinction would be attended with calamity to the country, and to 
the people connected with it, in every character and relation ; that no 
necessity exists for such extinction ; that slavery is sanctioned by the 
Mosaic dispensation ; that it is a fulfilment of the denunciation pro- 
nounced against the second son of Noah ; that it is not inconsistent 
with the genius and spirit of Christianity, nor considered by St. Paul 
as a moral evil." Address before the Agricultural Society of South 
Carolina. 

Governor Miller, of South Carolina, in his message to the 
Legislature in 1829, remarks : 

" Slavery is not a national evil ; on the contrary, it is a national 
benefit. Slavery exists in some form every where, and it is not of 
much consequence, in a philosophical point of view, whether it be vol- 
untary or involuntary. In a_po/tYtca/point of view, involuntary slavery 
has the advantage, since all who enjoy political liberty are then in fact 
free." 

It gives us pleasure to state, that the African Repository pro- 
nounces the doctrines of Messrs. Pinckney and Miller " abom- 
inable." TVe have explained in our introduction the tacit com- 
pact by which colonizationists are never to defend slavery in the 
abstract, nor condemn it in particulars. A scrupulous observ- 
ance of this compact enabled the Repository to exclaim, with 
great truth, when accused of hostility to slave-holders, 

" Have we sought to render the owners of slaves odious, by retailing 
anecdotes of their cruelty ? Every honorable man will do us the jus- 
tice to answer no." Afr. Rep., IV, p. 59. 

But the cmestion is, not what Mr. Gurley thinks of these doc- 
trines, but how they are regarded by slave-holders. Now there 
is no evidence that General Pinckney's rank in Carolina society 
was affected by his " abominable " doctrines ; on the contrary, 
8* 



86 jay's "WORKS. 

judging from, the eulogium pronounced at his decease, he was 
regarded as one of the most distinguished andipiaus members of 
the slave-holding community. And so far were the people of 
Carolina from being offended by the " abominable " doctrines of 
their governor, that after his term of service expired, they 
elected him to the Senate of the United States. 

Governor Hayne, of the same State, in his message to the 
Legislature (1833,) labors to prove that slavery adds to the 
military strength of a nation, and concludes with declaring that 

" The existence of slavery in the South is not only to be regarded 
as an evil not to be deplored, but that it brings along corresponding ad- 
vantages, in elevating the character, contributing to the wealth, en- 
larging the resources, and adding to the strength of the State in which 
it exists." 

It must be confessed, these are strange sentiments to be ad- 
vanced by the chief magistrates of a people who regard slavery 
as a curse, and are anxious to colonize their slaves. Let us now 
attend to the official declarations of the present Governor of 
South Carolina, and see what comment they afford on the sup- 
posed desire of the slave-holders to get rid of their slaves, a 
supposition ou which the whole theory of abolition by colonization 
is founded. 

" It is demonstrable that cotton could not be produced by the labor 
of hired freemen, for double the average price it has commanded for 
ten years past. It is obvious that the abolition of that kind of labor 
which is the basis of our wealth and prosperity, would annihilate, at a 
single blow, that entire branch of foreign commerce which brings 
the industry of the exporting States into competition with that of 
the manufacturing States. I am thoroughly convinced that the 
institution of domestic slavery, paradoxical as it may seem, is an indis- 
pensable element in an unmixed representative republic. How sacred 
is our obligation to provide for our posterity all the necessary 
means of defending and preserving an institution as essential to their 
existence and to their liberty, as it is obnoxious to the prejudices of 
those who have the greatest possible facilities for assailing it." Inau' 
gural Speech, Dec, 1834. 

In December last, a lecture on " Domestic Slavery," was 
delivered before " the Law Class of William and Mary College," 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 87 

and published in the Southern Literary Messenger, for January, 
1835. The following introductory passage will help to show the 
feeling that is cherished at the South : 

" This subject, (slavery,) is too interesting to be passed in silence. 
The time too is rife with proofs, that unless we mean tamely to surren- 
der a most important interest, we must hold ourselves always on the 
alert to DEFEND it with tongue and pen." 

A few years since, the State of Louisiana passed a law, pro- 
hibiting the importation of slaves from other States, but the 
extension of the sugar cultivation demanding more labor, the law 
was repealed in 1833, and this State is now importing multitudes 
of slaves from Maryland and Virginia. Soon after the repeal of 
the law, two thousand were offered for sale in New Orleans, in 
the course of a single week. 

We may judge how anxious the people of Louisiana are to 
send their slaves to Africa, from the following notice of a late 
sale in New Orleans : 

Willis, 18 years old, brought SHOO 

Jack, 29 " " 1200 

Adam, 20 " " 1300 

Tom, 1G " " 1175 

Dick, 30 " " 1000 

Bill, 14 " " 660 

Malinda, 29 " " 500 

A letter from an intelligent gentleman, personally acquainted 
with the state of slavery at Natchez, says : 

" The prospects of the blacks in the South-west, are gloomy in the 
extreme. Cotton can be afforded at 6 cents per pound; last year, 
(1832,) it was worth from 9 to 13 cents; this year it is worth from 14 
to 18 cents. Last year about 1000 negroes were sold in Natchez, and 
I am confident 1500 will be disposed of in that market this year. In 
my opinion, the slave's, if ever free, will owe their liberty to their own 
strength and the blessing of Heaven ; for their masters, as a Methodist 
minister once expressed it, think only of making more cotton, to buy 
more negroes, to make more cotton to buy more negroes." 

So far are masters from wishing to send their negroes to 
Africa, that they are continually increasing their stock, and 



88 JAY S WORKS. 

lience slaves are rising in value. A late Georgia paper an- 
nounces, that at a sale of seventy-one negroes, of all ages and 
kinds, the average price was $438. 

A convention has recently been held in Tennessee, for amend- 
ing the State Constitution, and one amendment is, a prohibition 
to the Legislature to abolish slavery. 

The Augusta Chronicle, (Geo.) of Oct., 1833, says : 

" We firmly believe, that if the Southern States do not quickly unite 
and declare to the North, if the question of slavery be longer discussed 
in any shape, they -will instantly secede from the Union ; that the 
question must be settled, and very soon, by the sword, as the only 
possible means of self-preservation." 

The Richmond Inquirer and the Washington Globe are both 
mightily indignant at the proposition that Congress should 
abolisn slavery in the District of Columbia. 

So far is it from being true, as stated by colonizationists, that 
the South is ready to surrender its slaves, that every day affords 
new proofs that the public sentiment both at the North and the 
South, is now more tolerant to slavery than at any other period 
during the last thirty years. Who believes that even ten years 
ago any Connecticut Legislature would have ventured to pass 
the Black Act ? or that Judge Daggett himself would have pro- 
nounced his portentous and extraordinary opinion ? At what 
time, before the influence of the Colonization Society was felt 
throughout our land, did the citizens of the North merit or 
receive such commendations from the slave press as the fol- 
lowing ? 

(< Public sentiment at the North, in reference to Southern interests, 
was never in a sounder state than it is now. The language of the 
Northern press is cheering in the extreme ; the feeling in favor of the 
South, and against the abolitionists, is deep and almost universal. 
Charleston Courier, 21st July, 1834. 

When, until late years, have the Governors of even slave 
States, dared to promulgate such " abominable " doctrines as 
those we have quoted ? 

Unless we greatly deceive ourselves, have now shown that 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 89 

no desire exists at the South to get rid of slavery, at least to 
such an extent as to render colonization in the remotest degree 
instrumental in abolishing it ; and it is an unquestioned fact, 
that in eighteen years only about 900 manumitted slaves have 
been sent to Africa. But certain laws have been recently passed 
by Virginia and Maryland, which are triumphantly cited by 
colonizationists as proofs of the growing desire at the South to 
abolish slavery, — a desire which is attributed to the influence 
of the Society. 

The law of Virginia appropriates $18,000 a year for five 
years, for the transportation of colored persons to Africa. Now 
it is evident that the effect of this law upon slavery in Virginia, 
must depend on the class of colored persons to be transported. 
Will it be believed that this law, received with such joy and 
triumph by colonizationists, confines the application of its appro- 
priation to the removal of such blacks as were free at the date of 
its passage ? In other words, it declares to the slave-holders, 
"We will not assist you in manumitting your slaves." By a 
previous law, any manumitted slave, who does not leave the State 
in twelve months, becomes again a slave : this new law provides 
that such a manumitted slave shall not be sent to Africa, — of 
course it affords no possible inducement or facility whatever to 
manumission ; and its whole operation is confined to the removal 
of nuisances, — and we have already seen, from the avowal of 
members of the Legislature, that this removal is virtually to be 
compulsory. The philanthropy that rejoices in such a law, is 
indeed of a peculiar cast, but it is the philanthropy of " the 
benevolent colonization system." * 

The Maryland law of 1832 appropriates $200,000 to be 
applied through the agency of the Maryland Colonization Society, 
to the removal to Africa, of " the people of color now free, and 
such as shall hereafter become so." 



*A party writer, in a late number of the Richmond Enquirer, says : " An 
opposition man, who stated in the spring, that he considered the removal of 
the deposits as affecting the value of his property thirty per cent., admits 
now, that he never saw a more wholesome state of thixgs ; negro boys 
and men will fetch from #600 to #700." Is Virginia sick of this wholesome 
state of things ? 



90 jay's works. 

On the 20th of January, 1833, the American Colonization 
Society 

" Resolved, that the Society view -with the highest gratification, the 
continued efforts of the State of Maryland to accomplish her patriotic 
ana benevolext system in regard to her colored population ; and 
that the last appropriation by that State of $200,000 in aid of African 
Colonization, is hailed by the friends of the system as a bright ex- 
ample to other States." 

Let us now examine this " benevolent system," this " bright 
example," and see how it accords with Christian love and sin- 
cerity. 

In forming our opinion of the true character of this scheme, it 
will not be improper to take into consideration the avowed 
motives which gave it birth. The Legislature, in their session 
of 1831, adopted the following resolutions : 

" Resolved, that the increased proportion of the free people of color, 
in this State, to the "white population — the evils growing out of their 
connection and unrestrained association with the slaves, their habits and 
manner of obtaining a subsistence, and their withdrawing A large 
portion of employment from the laboring class of the white population, 
are subjects of momentous and grave consideration to the good people 
of this State. 

" Resolved, that as philanthropists and lovers of freedom, we deplore 
the existence of slavery among us, and would use our utmost exertions 
to ameliorate its condition : yet we consider the unrestricted power of 
manumission as fraught with ultimate evils, of a more dangerous tendency 
than the circumstance of slavery alone ; and that any act, having for 
its object the mitigation of these joint evils, not inconsistent with other 
paramount considerations, would be worthy the attention and deliber- 
ation of the representatives of a free, liberal-minded and enlightened 
people." 

Another resolution followed, declaring that, by the coloniza- 
tion of free people of color in Africa, " these- evils may be 
measurably diminished, and a committee was appointed to frame 
a bill upon " the principles " of these resolutions. 

Such, then, are the principles of the Maryland benevolent 
system; and which of them is derived from the gospel of Christ? 
So far as the system relates to the free blacks, it proposes their re- 
moval, not out of kindness to them, but because they are supposed 
to be injurious to slave property ; because their habits and manner 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 91 

of obtaining a subsistence, the necessary results of wicked laws, 
are vicious ; and because they enter into competition with white 
laborers. This last accusation against the free blacks, is a most 
extraordinary one, when made by a people who keep in their 
employment more than one hundred thousand black 
laborers, who toil without wages, and subsist on the scantiest 
fare ; and yet the interference of these laborers with " the labor- 
ing class of the white population," occasions no uneasiness, and 
leads to no plan for their removal. And what are the principles 
of this system with regard to slaves ? Why, that it is worse to 
give a slave his liberty here, than to keep him in bondage ; but 
at the same time, that " the utmost exertions " ought to be made 
to " ameliorate his condition." Let us now proceed to the prac- 
tical application of these principles. At the next session, a re- 
port was presented, in which calculations are entered into, to 
show that " the whole of this population (of free blacks) can 
be removed in the course of one generation alone." But the 
legislators are philanthropists and lovers of freedom, and deplore 
the existence of slavery. Let us see how the committee propose 
to remove this deplored evil. The report says of the slaves } 
" they are property, and must be so regarded, and without their 
otoners' consent, none of them can be touched." 

Here we have a principle which secures to Maryland the bless- 
ings of slavery fore ver. In no country in the world, hi ancient 
or modern times, has slavery been abolished by the unani- 
mous consent of slave-holders. Never has it been peaceably 
abolished but by law. The Northern and Eastern States could 
abolish slavery without the consent of the owners : the Republi- 
can States of South America could do the same : the Legislature 
of Maryland can rule fifty thousand of their free colored cit- 
izens with a rod of iron, can deny them the most common and 
inestimable rights of humanity ; but it cannot rescue a human 
being from unmerited and involuntary bondage ! 

Let us now turn to the famous appropriation act. By this act, 
masters are allowed to manumit their slaves, but then the man- 
umitted slaves are to be transported beyond the limits of the 
State ; and should a parent or a child, a husband or a wife, 



92 jay's works. 

shudder at parting forever from a near and dear relative, the 
separation may be avoided by a renunciation, in open court, of 
the newly acquired liberty, and a public consent to continue a 
slave ! Such is the bearing of this benevolent system on slavery. 
Let us now contemplate its effects on the free blacks. The 
appropriation bill authorizes no compulsion, and imposes no 
penalties on a refusal to go to Africa. It was not expedient 
that this bill should contain such provisions, and therefore they 
were inserted in another bill passed by the same Legislature, 
and within two days of the other, entitled, " An act, relating to 
free negroes_and slaves." This act, like the Connecticut Black 
Act, is a bold and flagrant violation of the constitutional rights 
of free citizens. A citizen of New York, if his complexion be 
colored, may not visit a dying child or parent in Maryland, 
without incurring a penalty of fifty dollars for every week he 
remains, and if he is unable to pay the fine, why then he is to 
be sold by the sheriff at public sale for such time as may be neces- 
sary to cover the aforesaid penalty. But if a free negro is sold 
for a limited time, he is, in fact, sold for life. During the 
term for which he is sold, he is a chattel, and may be transported 
at the pleasure of his master ; and when the expiration of Ins 
term finds him in a cotton field in Missouri, or a sugar mill in 
Louisiana, who is to rescue him from interminable bondage ? 
Should a colored citizen of Maryland cross its boundary on 
business, ever so urgent to himself and family, on returning to 
his home, more than a month after, he also is liable to be seized 
and sold, unless previous to his departure he had complied with 
certain vexatious, legal formalities ; and which, from ignorance, 
he would be extremely likely to neglect, or perform imperfectly. 

A striking illustration of this "benevolent system" lately 
occurred. A free colored man, living near the line of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, petitioned the Maryland House of Delegates 
for leave to bring his grandchild from the City of Washington. 
The child had probably been left an orphan, and he naturally 
wished to take it into his own house. The petition was re- 
jected ! 

A brisk slave-trade is carried on between Maryland and the 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 93 

Southern States, and it is well known that free negroes are often 
the victims of this trade ; instances occurring of whole families 
being kidnapped. Under such circumstances, many would wish 
to have the means of protecting, if necessary, the freedom of 
themselves and children ; but the new bill forbids them to keep 
any military weapon, without a special license from a county 
court, or city corporation ; a condition amounting virtually to a 
total prohibition. No free negro may attend a religious meeting 
not conducted by a white person. 

As the law thus discourages, and in a great measure prohibits 
religious instruction, exhortation, and social prayer, among fifty 
thousand of the population of Maryland, no wonder it presumes 
every one of that fifty thousand to be a thief. Hence no person 
may, under the penalty of five dollars, buy of a free negro " any 
bacon, pork, beef, mutton, corn, wheat, tobacco, rye, or oats," 
unless he shall at the time exhibit a certificate from a Justice of 
the Peace, or three respectable persons, that he or they believe 
the said negro came honestly by the identical article offered for 
sale. 

Such are some of the features of the law, and they are well 
calculated to induce the free negroes to avail themselves of the 
benevolent and munificent provision made by the other law for 
their transportation to Africa. The concluding section, however, 
is the most operative of the whole, and promises to afford ample 
employment>for the two hundred thousand dollars, and to furnish 
Liberia with an abundant population. It is as follows : 

" Sect. 12. And be it enacted, that if any free negro or mulatto shall 
be convicted of ANY crime, committed after the passage of this act, 
which may not, under the laws of this State, be punished by hanging 
by the neck, such free negro or mulatto may, in the discretion of the 
court, he sentenced to the penalties and punishments now provided by 
law, or be banished from this State, OR be transported into some 

FOREIGN COUNTRY." 

Hence, if a free negro steals a pound of tobacco, he may be 

shipped off to Liberia. In civilized countries, it has been the 

aim of the Legislature, to apportion punishments to crimes, but 

Maryland has set " a bright example " of a simplification of the 

9 



94 jay's works. 

criminal code, without a parallel in the history of jurisprudence. 
She tells her judges, " in the case of free black offenders, you 
need give yourselves no trouble in comparing the different shades 
of guilt, and weighing those circumstances which aggravate or 
mitigate the offence. In certain cases, you must hang them ; in 
all others, without exception, you may send them to Africa." 

This is the " benevolent system," the " bright example " lauded 
by the American Colonization Society. This is the system 
which is cited as a proof that Maryland desires to abolish slavery. 
A symptom of this desire occurred in the Maryland House of 
Delegates, in 1834. Mr. Mann moved an inquiry into the exj)e- 
diency of abolishing slavery, after a certain period. So great 
was the excitement produced by this motion, that the mover with- 
drew it, and the minute of the motion was expunged from the 
journal. 

The $200,000, it seems, are entrusted to the Maryland Colo- 
nization Society ; and that Society, wishing still farther to 
increase its funds, has appealed to the benevolence of the North. 
The appeal is founded on two solemn official declarations : first, 
that it aims at the extirpation of slavery in Maryland, by coloni- 
zation j and secondly, that it contemplates " founding a nation 
on the principle of temperance." 

We have seen that a committee of the Maryland Legislature 
insisted on the possibility of the removal of the ivhole free black 
population in one generation. The Society in their address, 
repeatedly declare their object to be the extirpation of slavery 
by colonization ; and the Legislature forbids, as we have also 
seen, manumission at home. Of course, slavery can only be 
extirpated by the removal, not of a select portion, but of all the 
slaves. 

In what terms ought we then to speak of the following resolu- 
tion of the Maryland Society, published to conciliate the friends 
of temperance at the North ? 

" Whereas it is desired that the settlement about to be made by this 
Society, should, as far as practicable, become a moral and temperate 
community ; and as this is to be effected, in a great degree, by the 
character of the emigrants, who leave America for a new home in 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 95 

Africa : and whereas, the sad experience of this country has shown the 
demoralizing effects of the use of ardent spirits, 

Be it resolved, that no emigrant shall be permitted to go from Mary- 
land to a settlement from this Society in Africa, who will not first bind 
himself, or herself, to abstain therefrom." 



So the Society is to cany to Africa 100,000 slaves, and thus 
exterminate slavery in their State ; and yet they will positively 
refuse to carry one of them until he has taken the temperance 
pledge. But what if a portion of them will not consent to take 
the pledge ? must slavery continue, or must means be taken to 
coerce their consent? 

None but those wilfully blind, can examine this subject with- 
out seeing that the measures adopted by Virginia and Maryland 
are mere contrivances to get rid of the free blacks ; and far 
more disgraceful in the latter, than in the former case, because 
more disguised by insincere professions. 

The New York Journal of Commerce, a colonization paper, 
had the candor in speaking on the subject, to remark, " It is true 
these States do not propose to resort, in the jirst instance, to 
compulsory measures ; but does any one doubt that they will 
resort to such measures, if the number of volunteer emigrants 
should not be sufficient to exhaust the appropriations made for 
their removal ? " And a Baltimore paper, (the Chronicle,) 
alluding to the Maryland acts, avows, " The intention of those 
laws was, and their effect must be, to expel the free people of 
color from the State." 

Yet do these cruel and perfidious measures receive the support 
and approbation of the Colonization Society. 

There is still a powerful objection to the whole colonization 
scheme, as a means of removing slavery, to which we have not 
yet adverted. No principle of political economy is more obvious 
than that prices depend on supply and demand. If the first is 
diminished, while the latter is increased, or even remains station- 
ary, prices necessarily rise. We can all understand, that should 
half the sheep in the United States be suddenly destroyed, or 
carried out of the country, the value of the remaining half 
would instantly be enhanced. So also, we have no difficulty in 



96 jay's works. 

seeing, that should the cholera sweep off from the Southern 
plantations, two or three hundred thousand slaves, there would 
be an increased activity in the man-market, and human flesh 
would rise many per cent, in price. Yet it seems never to occur 
to colonizationists, that were it possible for them to produce any 
sensible diminution of the slaves by transportation, the same 
consequences would follow. The Society proposes reducing the 
number of laborers, but without diminishing the demand for 
them. Let us suppose every free negro safely landed at Libe- 
ria — of course all the laborers remaining in the cotton and 
sugar-fields of the South, are slaves. Now the Society is grad- 
ually sending away these slaves, not by freeing at once any town 
or county from them, but by picking them up throughout the 
whole slave-region, as it can meet with conscientious masters ; 
taking a few in one place, and a few in another ; now stripping 
a plantation of its slaves in Virginia, and now in Missouri. 
This indiscriminate mode of obtaining emigrants, necessarily and 
absolutely prevents the substitution of white for black labor. 
The plantations thus divested of laborers, must remain ban-en 
till new slaves are procured. But the proprietor is too consci- 
entious to buy any, and is hence compelled to sell his estate. 
The purchaser immediately goes into the market to re-stock the 
farm. Others do the same, and hence arises a new demand for 
slaves, and of course an increase of their value. But as slaves 
grow more and more valuable, the disposition to make presents 
of them to the Colonization Society will decline. Thus does 
the inevitable mercantile operation of the Society, independent 
of all moral considerations, necessarily tend to defeat its object. 
The idea of abolishing slavery, by increasing the demand for 
slaves, is about as wise, as would be a plan for lessening the 
circulation of infidel books, by raising a fund for their purchase. 
We have now examined the means by which the Society 
proposes to effect the removal of slavery, and trust we have 
shown their utter worthlessness. Were the impracticability of 
this scheme its only objection, the friends of humanity and reli- 
gion would not be called on, as they now are, to meet it with 
unrelenting hostility — to labor without rest, and without weari- 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 97 

ness, for its entire prostration. Alas, though powerless for good, 
it is mighty for evil ; and its baneful influence is leading multi- 
tudes of good and well-intentioned men, unconsciously to coun- 
tenance doctrines and measures, necessarily tending to perpetuate 
slavery and all its abominations in our land. This is an asser- 
tion that ought not rashly to be made nor hastily believed. We 
appeal to common sense and undisputed facts. 

Admitting that colonization could, in the course of ages, 
extirpate slavery, ought we, therefore, to reject every means of 
shortening the sufferings of the slave, by hastening his libera- 
tion ? But colonizationists, not content with insisting on the 
efficiency of their own plan, discourage and oppose every other. 
Now should their plan prove delusive, after the lapse of centuries, 
their influence in preventing the adoption of any other, will 
have been fatal, as far as it may have gone, to the freedom of 
millions. 

" It (colonization) is the only possible mode of emancipation at 
once safe, and rational, that human ingenuity can devise." Speech of 
Mr. Custiss. 13th Report, p. 8. 

" Colonization is the only expedient by which these evils can be 
mitigated." Speech of J. A. Dix. Afr. Rep., TV, 168. 

" To this country it offers the only possible means of gradually rid- 
ding ourselves of a mighty evil." 1st Rep., N. Y. Colonization Society. 

" The colonizing scheme, leading as it does to voluntary manumission, 
is the only one which true wisdom can dictate." Speech of Mr. Key, 
Vice President. Afr. Rep., IV, p. 299. 

" I would urge this system of colonization upon your notice, as the 
only rational plan which has yet been suggested for relieving our 
Southern brethren from the curse of slavery." Speech of Chancellor 
Walworth of N. Y. 

" The only rational and practical plan ever devised for the emanci- 
pation of the slaves of independent States." N. Y. Courier and En- 
quirer, 12th May, 1834, a colonization paper. 

" This great end (abolition) is to be attained in no other way than 
by a plan of extensive colonization." Letter of R. G. Harper, Vice 
President. 2d Rep., p. 3. 

" In our opinion, the Colonization Society presents the only safe and 
feasible plan for the liberation of our slaves from bondage." Report 
of Wilmington Col. Society. Afr. Rep., IX, 319. 

9* 



98 jay's works. 

"We have seen the nature and extent of the moral influence of 
this only rational plan in favor of abolition ; let us now examine 
that which it exerts in behalf of slavery. 

In the first place, we ask, what must be the natural effect on 
public opinion of such disclaimers as the following ? 

"It is no Abolition Society ; it addresses, as yet, arguments to no 
master. It denies the design of attempting emancipation, partial or 
general." Address of J. B. Harrison to Lynchburgh Col. Society. Afr. 
Re])., Ill, 197. 

" Into their (the Society's) accounts, the subject of emancipation 
does not enter at all." Afr. lie])., IV, p. 306. 

" The friends of colonization wish to be distinctly understood on 
this point. From the beginning, they have disavowed, and they do yet 
disavow, that their object is the emancipation of slaves." Speech of J. 
S. Green, before the New Jersey Society. 

" From its origin, and throughout the whole period of its existence, 
it has constantly disclaimed all intention whatever of interfering in the 
smallest degree with the rights of property, or the object of emanci- 
pation, gradual or immediate." Speech of Mr. Clay, Vice President. 
Afr. Rep., VI, p. 13. 

" Recognizing the constitutional and legitimate existence of slavery, 
it seeks not to interfere, directly or indirectly, with the rights it creates." 
Afr. Rep., Ill, p. 1G. 

" He considered himself publicly pledged, so long as he had any 
thing to do with the Society, to resist every attempt to connect it with 
emancipation, either in theory or practice." Speech of Gen. Jones, a 
Manager of the Am. Col. Soc, 23d Jan., 1834. 

" The emancipation of slaves, or the amelioration of their condition, 
witli the moral, intellectual, and political improvement of the people of 
color within the United States, are objects foreign to the powers of 
this Society." Address of the Board of Managers to its Auxiliaries. 
Afr. Rep.,'\ll, p. 291. 

Thus we see the friends of the Society utterly deny that 
emancipation, partial or general, gradual or immediate, direct or 
indirect, in theory or in practice, is included among its objects ; 
and yet the Society " is the oxly possible mode of emancipation 
at once safe and rational, that human ingenuity can devise ! " 

A worthy vice in'esident of the Society, Mr. G. Smith, 
remarked : 

" They who denounce us for not favoring or promoting the emancipa- 
tion of slaves, might just as well denounce the Bible or Temperance 
Society, because they do not step out of their respective spheres, to 
favor or promote the emancipation of slaves." Afr. Rep., IX, p. 358. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 99 

But what if a Bible or a Temperance Society should announce 
itself to the world, as about to abolish slavery ; should declare 
itself to be the only possible instrument by which slavery could 
be abolished ; and should oppose and ridicule the employment of 
any other instrument, and should then falsify all its professions, 
and exert its influence to justify and perpetuate slavery? 

Instead of denouncing the Society for not stepping out of its 
sphere to favor or promote the emancipation of slaves, we 
denounce it for leaving that sphere, and for favoring and pro- 
moting continued slavery. The professed constitutional object of 
the Society, is the colonization of free blacks and manumitted 
slaves. We fully admit, it has no more right to meddle with 
emancipation or slavery, than a Bible Society ; and we condemn 
it, because disregarding its professed object, and in utter contempt 
of its own constitution, it has lent itself to support and perpetu- 
ate a system of cruelty and wickedness. It is painful to make 
these assertions, but duty requires them, and facts justify them. 
"We will now proceed to show that the Society (and by the term 
we intend colonizationists generally) has stepped out of its sphere 
to acknowledge that man may have property in man ; to justify 
him for holding this property; and to vilify all who would per- 
suade him instantly to surrender it. 

" We hold their slaves, as we hold their other property, sacred." 
Speech of J. S. Green, before New Jersey Colonization Society. Afr. 
Rep., I, p. 283. 

" To the slave-holder, they (the Society) address themselves in a 
tone of conciliation and sympathy. We know your rights, say they, 
and we respect them." Afr. Rep., VII, p. 100. 

" The rights of the masters are to remain sacred in the eyes of the 
Society." "" Address of Rockbridge Col. Soc. Afr. Rep., IV, p. 274. 

" We decline assenting to the opinion of some abolitionists, that 
though the master's right over his living slaves should be conceded, yet 
he has no claim of property in the unborn, for the reason that there 
can be no property in a thing not in esse. This position is wholly 
untenable, under any jurisprudence." Am. Quar. Review, transferred 
to Afr. Rep., IX, p. 35. 

The right of property in human flesh, cannot surely be more 
saci*ed than that in rum ; and yet it would sound strange, to 
hear a religious society addressing the rum-seller in a tone of 



100 jay's works. 

conciliation and sympathy, and assuring him that they regarded 
his property in rum as sacred, and respected his right to traffic 
in it. 

If it be a question whether man can lawfully have property 
in man, who authorized the Society to settle it ? That it is a 
question, is evident from the following exclamation of Lord 
Chancellor Brougham, in one of his speeches : " Talk not of 
the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right — I 
acknowledge not the property." And yet the right of the "West 
Indian and the Virginia planter, rested on precisely the same 
basis, the sanction of human laws. 

Not only does the Society acknowledge slaves to be property, 
but it excuses and justifies those who hold this property. 

No motive can operate so powerfully in inducing a master to 
liberate his slaves, as the conviction that, by retaining them, he 
is acting contrary to the will of his Maker, and exposing him- 
self to his displeasure. 

In a manual of devotion, lately published by the excellent 
Bishop Meade, of Virginia, himself a zealous colonizationist, 
there is a prayer to be used by the head of a family. This 
prayer, intended expressly for the slave-region, has this affecting 
petition : " heavenly Master, hear me while I lift up my heart 
in prayer, for those unfortunate beings who call me master. 
God, make known unto me my whole duty towards them and 
their oppressed race, and give me courage and zeal to do it at 
all events. Convince me of sin, if I be wrong in retaining them 
another moment in bondage." 

It is observable, that in this prayer, the slave-holder, when in 
communion with his Maker, far from claiming a sacred right of 
property in his fellow immortals, dares not make any claim to 
them whatever, but alludes to them as those " who call me mas- 
ter." It is also obvious, that the question of immediate eman- 
cipation is pressing on his conscience, and fearful lest he is 
committing sin in holding slaves " another moment," he implores 
the Divine guidance. He will, of course, seek for light wherever 
it may be found, and will naturally turn to the Colonization 
Society, to learn the opinion of the eminent men who belong to 



AMERICAS COLONIZx\.TIOX SOCIETY. 101 

it, on this momentous subject. Now let us see what opiates 
that Society administers to quiet his uneasy conscience, and to 
lull it in profound repose. 

First, he is assured, that by freeing his slaves, he would be 
guilty of great inhumanity towards them. 

" The very commencing act of freedom to the slave, is to place him 
in a condition still worse, if possible, both for his moral habits, his out- 
ward provision, and for the community that embosoms him, than even 
that, deplorable as it was, from which he has been removed." Address 
to Col. Soc. N. Carolina. Afr. Rep., Ill, p. 6G. 

" What but sorrow can we feel at the misguided piety which has set 
so many of them free by death-bed devise, or sudden conviction of 
injustice?" Address to Lyncliburgli Col. Soc. Afr. Rep., Ill, p. 193. 

" There are in the United States 238,000 blacks denominated free, 
but whose freedom confers on them, we might say, no privilege but the 
privilege of being more vicious and miserable than slaves can be." Rev. 
Mr. Bacon, of New Haaen. 1th Rep., p. 99. 

" Policy, and even the voice of humanity, forbade the progress of 
manumission." Afr. Rep., IV, p. 268. 

" It would be as humane to throw them from the decks in the middle 
passage, as to set them free in our country." Afr. Re])., IV, p. 220. 

"Was "Washington wanting in humanity, when he liberated all 
his slaves ? and was he surpassed in benevolence by his nephew, 
the President of the Society, who avowed his intention of never 
giving freedom to any of his ? Was it " misguided piety " that 
induced Jefferson to set his free by his last will ? Was it an 
act of perfidious cruelty in the State of Georgia to purchase the 
freedom of a slave, who had disclosed an intended conspiracy, — 
thus under the pretence of rewarding him, perpetrating an act 
as inhuman as throwing a fellow being from the decks in the 
middle passage ? Is the recent act of North Carolina, in pay- 
ing $1800 for the freedom of a slave, who had, with singular 
intrepidity, preserved a public building from fire, of the same 
character ? 

Much as we respect Mr. Bacon's character, we cannot but 
believe, that could his sincerity be tested by his being com- 
pelled to choose between being a slave in Louisiana, or a free 
black even in Canterbury, he would prefer the latter alternative. 
It is the more remarkable, that Mr. Bacon should have been led 



102 jay's works. 

to make such unadvised assertions, when New Haven itself 
afforded full proof of their incorrectness. Hear the testimony 
of his estimable and distinguished fellow townsman, Professor 
Silliman. 

u We need not look far from home to see the pleasing effects of the 
benevolent and disinterested exertions of an eminent friend* of the 
Africans, aided by a kindred spirit. It is delightful to the benevolent 
mind, to see so many of our colored people living in neat and comfort- 
able dwellings, furnished in decent taste, and in sufficient fulness, thus 
indicating sobriety, industry, and self-respect ; to see their children in 
clean attire, hastening on a Sabbath morning to the Sunday school, 
and on other days, with cheerful and intelligent faces, seeking the com- 
mon school." Silliman's Alh of July Oration, 1832. 

The slave-holder is farther instructed by the Society, that the 
continuance of slavery here, is at present, and under existing 
circumstances, unavoidable, and that he is perfectly excusable 
and innocent in keeping his fellow-men in bondage ; and that 
all the cruel laws relative to slavery are right and proper. Is 
all this calumny ? Attend to the testimony. 

" Slavery is an evil entailed upon the present generation of slave- 
holders, which they must suffer, whether they will or not." African 
Rep., V, p. 179. 

" The existence of slavery among us, though not at all to be objected 
to our Southern brethren, is a fault." Address of N. Y. Colonization 
Society. Afr. Rep., VII, p. 136. 

May we ask, how came the States of Missouri, Alabama, and 
Mississippi, which within thirty years were nearly in a state of 
nature, to be now thronged with slaves ? 

" It (the Society) condemns no man because he is a slave-holder." 
Editorial Article — Afr. Rep., VII, p. 200. 

" Acknowledging the necessity by which its (slavery) present con- 
tinuance, and rigorous provisions for its maintenance, are justified." 
Afr. Rep., Ill, p. 16. 

" It is the business of the free, their safety requires it, to keep the 
slaves in ignorance." Proceedings of New York Col. Soc, 2d Ann. 

" The laws of Virginia now discourage, and very wisely, perhaps, 
the emancipation of slaves." Speech of Mr. Mercer, V. President, I 
Rep. 

* The Rev. S. S. Jocelyn, an active and public opponent of the Coloniza- 
tion Society. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 103 

"They (the abolitionists) confound the misfortunes of one generation 
with the crimes of another." Afr. Rep., VII, p. 202. 

" We all know, from a variety of considerations which it is unneces- 
sary to name, and in consequence of the policy which is obliged to be 
pursued in the Southern States, that it is extremely difficult to free a 
slave ; and hence the enactment of those laws, which a fatal necessity 
seems to demand." Afr. Rep., II, p. 12. 

" I am not complaining of the owners of slaves : they cannot get rid ot 
them." Address before Hampden Col. Soc. Afr. Rep., IV, p. 226. 

" There are men in the Southern States who long to do something 
effectual for the benefit of their slaves, and would gladly emancipate 
them, did not prudence and compassion forbid such a measure." I 
Rep., p. 100, App. 

" Suppose the slaves of the South to have the knowledge of free- 
men, — they would be free, or exterminated by the whites. This ren- 
ders it necessary to prevent their instruction, and to keep them from 
Sunday Schools, or the means of gaining knowledge." Proceedings of 
New York Col. Soc, 2d Ann Rep. 

" The treatment of the slaves is in general as good as circumstances 
and the cruel necessity of the case will permit." Proceedings of New 
York Col. Soc, 2d Ann. 

" We believe that there is not the slightest moral turpitude in holding 
slaves, under existing circumstances, in the South." Afr. Rep., 
IX, p. 4. 

Thus do we find the whole system of American slavery 
justified on the tyrant's plea, necessity. But this is not all. 
The scriptures themselves are wrested to confound those who 
recommend abolition. 

The President of the Geneva Colonization Society, S. M. 
Hopkins, Esq., in an address delivered 5tli of August, 1834, 
and published by request of the Society, after citing various texts 
to prove slavery warranted by the Bible, thus goes on : 

" Here are then five places in the New Testament, where the duty 
of servants (slaves) is expressly and formally treated by way of precept, 
and one case of example, making six in all. In every one, the duty of 
obedience is insisted on, and in one or more, where the duty of mas- 
ters is treated, there is not the least reference nor hint of the idea, that 
Christian masters should manumit their slaves ; much less that other 
Christians should preach manumission. But I go farther ; as I under- 
stand the Epistle to Timothy, and as it is understood by such commen- 
tators as I have consulted, there is an express injunction, applicable to 
those times and circumstances, not to preach manumission." * 

* Mr. Hopkins professes to be opposed to slavery, all this Scripture to the 
contrary notwithstanding. 



104 jay's works. 

We will not trouble ourselves at present with Mr. Hopkins's 
theology ; but we may surely be permitted to inquire, how it 
comes that the Constitution forbids colonizationists to recommend 
and promote abolition, but gives them full liberty to oppose it ? 
Why is the Constitution sacred, only when it guards the interests 
and soothes the conscience of the slave-holder ? and why is it a 
thing of nought, when colonizationists would empty the vials of 
their wrath upon the heads of those who proclaim the sinfulness 
of slavery, and the dutyand policy of immediate emancipation ? * 

Let us now scrutinize a little this plea of necessity, which is 
urged by colonizationists with so much confidence in behalf of 
slavery. Does a Christian society, do ministers of the gospel of 
Christ, maintain that it is ever necessary to violate the command 
of Jehovah ? necessary to keep millions in ignorance of the 
revealed will of God ? necessary to trample upon human rights, 
and to outrage the plainest principles of justice and humanity? 
Do Protestants insist that it is necessary to deny the Bible to 
more than one-third of the inhabitants of the Southern States ? 
What necessity required that Missouri should be a slave State ? 
What necessity multiplied the slaves in Alabama, and Missis- 
sippi from three thousand to one hundred and eighty-two thou- 
sand, since the year 1800 ? What necessity prevented Kentucky 
from liberating her twelve thousand slaves in 1790, when New 
York could liberate ten thousand in one day in 1827 ? What 
necessity will render Florida and Arkansas slave States ? Why 
did not necessity prevent the abolition of slavery in South 
America, Mexico, and the West Indies ? 

The Society, whose moral influence is to free us from slavery, 
not only quiets the conscience of the slave-holder, by showing 
the lawfulness of slavery, but it promises to enhance the value 
of slave-labor, and to divest it of a portion of that danger Avhich 

* It is due to candor to state, that all the principles imputed in this work 
to colonizationists, are not held by them indiscriminately. A few individuals 
have honorably and publicly disclaimed one or more of them. These dis- 
claimers have however been made, we believe, without an exception, since 
the discussions excited by abolitionists. No doubt many members would in- 
dignantly reject the doctrines on which we have commented. The pious and 
well-intentioned supporters of the Society, are just beginning to understand 
its true character, and hence the numerous converts from colonization within 
the last twelve months. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 105 

usually attends it. Let us see how colonization promotes the 
interests of slave-holders ; and let us attend, in the first instance, 
to Mr. Archer, of Virginia. 

" He was not one of those (however desirable it might be, and was in 
abstract speculation) who looked to the complete removal of slavery 
anion"- us. If that consummation were to be considered feasible at all, 
it was at a period too remote to warrant the expenditure of any resources 
of contemplation or contribution now. The progress of slavery was 
subjected to the action of a law of the utmost regularity of action. 
Where this progress was neither stayed nor modified by causes of 
collateral operation, it hastened with a frightful rapidity, disproportioned 
entirely to the ordinary law of the advancement of population, to its 
catastrophe, which was repletion. 

" If none were drained away, slaves became, except under peculiar 
circumstances of climate and production, inevitably and speedily re- 
dundant, first to the occasions of prof table employment, and as a con- 
sequence, to the facility of comfortable provision for them. _ No matter 
what the humanity of "the owners, fixed restriction on their resources 
must transfer itself to the comfort and subsistence of the slave. At 
this last stage, the evil in this form had to stop. When this stage had 
been reached, what course or remedy remained ? Was open butchery 
to be resorted to, as among the Spartans with the Helots ? or general 
emancipation and incorporation, as in South America ? or abandon- 
ment of the country by the masters, as must come to be the case in 
the West Indies ? 

" Either of these was a deplorable catastrophe. Could all of them 
be avoided, and if they could, how ? There was but one way, but that 
might be made effectual, fortunately. It teas to provide and keep open 
a drain for the excess of increase beyond the occasions of prof table 
employment. This might be done effectually by extension of the plan of 
the Society. * * * * After the present class of free blacks had 
been exhausted by the operation of the plan he was recommending. 
Others would be supplied for its action, in the proportion of the excess 
of the colored population it would be necessary to throw off, by the 
process of voluntary manumission or sale. This effect must result from 
the depreciating value of the slaves, ensuing their disproportionate 
multiplication. This depreciation would be relieved and retarded at 
the same time by the process. It was on grounds of interest, therefore, 
the most indispensable pecuniary interest, that he addressed him- 
self to the people and legislatures of the slave-holding 
States." 15th Report, p. 22. 

However we may be surprised at the indiscretion of the 
managers in printing and circulating this speech with their an- 
nual report, we cannot but admire its honest frankness. Here 
is no colonization poetry, but plain, common-sense prose ; no 
pictures of the African Elysium, — no anticipations of the con- 
10 



106 jay's works. 

version of millions and millions of Pagans, but intelligent re 
marks on the true means of perpetuating slavery, and keeping 
up the price of slaves. Knowing the utter futility of abolishing 
slavery by colonization, Mr. Archer will not expend on that 
topic even his " contemplation." But the time will come when 
negroes -will be so plenty, that it will be difficult to find either 
work or food for them ; and this state of things, if not prevented, 
will lead to the abolition of slavery. But the Society may pre- 
vent such a result by sending off the free blacks, and after they 
are gone, by sending off such slaves as may be manumitted ; 
and by keeping open this drain, the undue multiplication of 
slavery will be prevented, and their depreciation in the market 
arrested. 

Let us now attend to the managers themselves. In the 2d 
Report, p. 9, they declare that they confidently believe that the 

" Colonization of the free people of color, will render the slave who 
remains in America, more obedient, more faithful, more honest, and 
consequently more useful to his master." 

""By removing the most fruitful sources of discontent (free blacks) 
from among our slaves, we should render them more industrious ana 
attentive to our commands." Address of Putnam (Georgia) Col. 
Society. 

" What greater pledge can we give for the moderation and safety of 
our measures, than our oivn interests as slave-holders, and the ties that 
bind us to the slave-holding community to which we belong ? " Speech 
of Mr. Key, Vice Pres. 11th Rejwrt, p. 14. 

" The injury they (the free blacks) do to the slave-holder's property, 
by their influence upon his servants, would, if valued, amount to more 
than sufficient to convey them from us." Address of Rev. J. C. 
Young to Col. Society. Afr. Rep., IX, 59. 

" To remove these persons from among us, will increase the useful- 
ness, and improve the moral character of those who remain in servitude, 
and with ichose labors the country is unable to dispense." Address to a 
N. Carolina Col. Soc. Afr. Rep., Ill, 67. 

" None are obliged to follow our example, and those who do not, will 
find the value of their negroes increased, by the departure of ours." 
Kentucky Luminary. 

" The free negroes corrupt our slaves. From what has been adduced, 
the expediency of removing this nuisance from the community is 
clearly inferable, both in relation to their interests and ours ; and this 
can only be attained by means of the Colonization Society." Internal 
Improvements of South Carolina, by Robert Mills, p. 15. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 107 

So much for the moral influence of the Society in abolishing 
slavery, by rendering it profitable. Now for its agency in 
rendering it safe. 

" The tendency of the scheme, and one of its objects, is to secure 
slave-holders, and the -whole Southern country, against certain evil 
consequences growing out of the present three-fold mixture of our 
population." Address of a Virginian Col. Soc. Afr. Rep., IV, 274. 

" By removing these people, (free blacks,) we rid ourselves of a 
large party who will always be ready to assist our slaves in any mis- 
chievous design they may conceive." Address to a Col. Soc. in Vir- 
ginia. Afr. Rep. ,1, 1 7G. 

" Are they (the free blacks) Vipers sucking our blood ? We will 
hurl them from us." Address to Lynchburg Col. Society. Afr. Rep., 
in, 201. 

" By thus repressing the rapid increase of blacks, the white popula- 
tion would be enabled to reach, and soon overtop them; the conse- 
quence would be security." Afr. Rep., IV, 344. 

" The removal of every single free black in America, would be 
productive of nothing but safety to the slave-holder." Afr. Rep., 
in, 202. 

" So far from having a dangerous tendency, when properly consid- 
ered, it will be viewed as an additional guard to our peculiar species of 
property." Neiv Orleans Argus. 

" They (the objects of the American Colonization Society) are in 
the first place to aid ourselves, by relieving us from a species of pop- 
ulation (free blacks) pregnant with future danger." Speech of Gen. 
Harper, Vice President. 1th Report, p. 7. 

" I am a Virginian. I dread for her the corroding evil of this 
numerous caste, (free blacks.) I tremble for the danger of a disaffec- 
tion spreading, through their seduction, among our servants." Address 
of I. B. Harrison. Afr. Rep., HI, 197. 

Thus does the Society aim at abolishing slavery, by declaring 
it lawful, increasing its profits, and lessening its dangers ; and 
as we shall presently see, covering with obloquy, and denouncing 
as fanatics, all who dissent from its assertion, that this is " the 
only possible mode " of relieving the country from slavery. 

And why is it the only possible mode ? Because the laws of 
most of the slave States prohibit manumission at home, and 
therefore no master in those States could liberate his slaves, did 
not the Society enable him to evade the law, by sending his 
slaves to Africa ? But who made these laws ? Slave-holders. 
Who alone can repeal these laws ? Slave-holders. Then slave- 



108 jay's works. 

holders prevent themselves from liberating their slaves ; and 
hence it is optional with them to grant manumission or not. Of 
course colonization is not the only possible mode of effecting 
abolition, since the slave-holders, if they pleased, might easily 
discover " a more excellent way." 

It will not probably be denied, that he who recommends a 
wicked act, or applauds it after it is committed, participates in 
the guilt of it ; and as by the confession of colonizationists, the 
laws in question prevent abolition, those who advise or approve 
those laws, partak'e of the guilt of continuing slavery. Let us 
now inquire in what relation the Colonization Society stands to 
these laws. 

In the first place, let it be recollected that several of the Legis- 
latures by whom these laws have been enacted, or by whom 
they are kept in force, have decidedly approved of the Society. 
Now listen to the official declaration of the Board of Managers. 

" The managers could with no propriety depart from their original 
and avowed purpose, and make emancipation their object. And they 
would further say, that if they were not thus restrained by the terms 
of their association, they would still consider any attempts to promote 
the increase of the free colored population by manumission, unneces- 
sary, premature, and dangerous." Memorial of the American Col. Soc. 
to the several State Legislatures. Afr. Rep., II, GO. 

We find here an illustration of the remarks in our introduc- 
tion, on the convenient restraints of the Constitution. The man- 
agers are restrained from promoting emancipation by the Con- 
stitution, but they are at perfect liberty to promote the perman- 
ency of slavery, by denouncing manumission. And to whom is 
this denunciation made ? To the very Legislatures who are 
striving to effect the same object by the laws we have mentioned. 
And yet colonizationists mourn over the misfortune of the mas- 
ter who is prevented by law from liberating his slaves ? But 
perhaps the language we have quoted was used inadvertently, 
and does not represent the sentiments of colonizationists gener- 
ally. Let us see. 

" This law, (a law of Virginia, by which a manumitted negro becomes 
again a slave if he remains twelve months in the State,) odious and 
unjust as it may at first view appear, and hard as it may seem to bear 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 109 

upon the liberated negro, Avas doubtless dictated by sound policy, and 
its repeal would be regarded by none with more unfeigned regret than the 
friends of African Colonization. It has restrained many masters from 
giving freedom to their slaves, and has thereby contributed to check the 
growth of an evil already too great and formidable." Memorial from 
Powhatlan Col. Soc. to Virginia Legislature. 

" To set them (the slaves) loose among us, would be an evil more 
intolerable than slavery itself." Report of Kentucky Col. Society Afr. 
Rep., VI, 81. 

" As long as our present feelings and prejudices exist, the abolition 
of slavery cannot be accomplished without the removal of the blacks." 
2d Report N. York Soc. 

" If the question were submitted, whether there should be either 
immediate or gradual emancipation of all the slaves in the United 
States, without their removal, painful as it is to express the opinion, I 
have no doubt that it would be unwise to emancipate them." Speech 
of Mr. Clay, Vice President, to Kentucky Soc. Afr. Rep., VI, 5. 

Here we find a vice president of the Parent Society advocating 
perpetual slavery in preference to even gradual emancipation. 

" They (colonizationists) entertain the opinion generally, that if 
universal emancipation were practicable, neither the interest of the 
master, the happiness of the slave, nor the welfare of the colony which 
they have at heart, would make it desirable." Mr. Barton's Address to 
a Col. Soc. in Virginia. Afr. Rep., VI, 291. 

" Resolved, That we superadd our decided opinion that colonization 
ought to keep equal pace with manumission of people of color through- 
out the United States." Proceedings of Col. Meeting at Pittsburgh, 
N. York, 4th July, 1833. 

" Any scheme of emancipation, without colonization, they know to 
be productive of nothing but evil." Speech of Mr. Key, a Vice Presi- 
dent. Afr. Rep., IV, 300. 

" We would say, liberate them only on condition of their going to 
Africa or Hayti." Afr. Rep., Ill, 26. 

" I am strongly opposed to emancipation in every shape and 
degree, unless accompanied by colonization." Letter from R. G. 
Harper, Vice President, to Secretary of the Society, 20th August, 1817. 

" It is a well-established point, that the public safety forbids either 
the emancipation or the general instruction of the slaves." 7th Report, 
p. 94. 

" So long as we can hold a pen, we will employ it heart and hand, 
against the advocates of immediate emancipation, or any emancipation 
that does not contemplate expatriation." N. Y. Courier and Enquirer, 
a Col. paper, 10th July, 1834. 

10* 



110 jay's works. 

" Emancipation, with liberty to remain on this side of the Atlantic, 
is but an act of dreamy madness." Speech of Mr. Custiss, 13th 
Report, p. 8. 

" What right, I demand, have the children of Africa to a homestead 
in the white man's country ? " Speech of Mr. Custiss, lilh Report, 
p. 21. 

It is a pity Mr. Custiss does not ask his conscience what right 
he has to confine a child of Africa to a homestead on his own 
plantation ; and why money was raised by public subscription 
to purchase permission for Philip Lee to leave a homestead to 
which he had no right. 

What abundant cause for gratitude to Almighty God, have 
the Northern States, that the colonization scheme was not devised 
some forty yeai*s sooner. Had the doctrines taught by the Soci- 
ety been then held by our statesmen and divines, the dark cloud 
of slavery would now be brooding over our whole land. 

We have seen that the whole influence of the Society and of 
the colonizing Legislatures, is to vindicate and preserve and 
enforce the laws against manumission. And now, after defend- 
ing and strengthening this barrier against human freedom, the 
Society glorifies itself for its benevolence in having opened a 
little crevice through which, in sixteen years, a few hundred 
captives, out of millions, have escaped ! Had the Society and 
its friends opposed these laws, they would long since have been 
swept away, and thousands and tens of thousands would have 
been free, who are now pining in bondage. In 1782, Virginia 
repealed her restraining law, and in nine years, 10,000 slaves 
ware manumitted. The slave-holders became alarmed, — their 
vocation was in danger of becoming disreputable, and the law 
was reenacted. 

We have all heard much of the evils resulting from the traffic 
in ardent spirits, and we know that multitudes are endeavoring 
to suppress it, by insisting that it is sinful, and that Christian 
duty requires its immediate abolition. Now let us suppose a 
society for abolishing it, to be formed on the model of the Col- 
onization Society, and ask ourselves how it would proceed, and 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. Ill 

what would be the prospect of its success. Such a society- 
would begin by informing the venders, that it held their property 
in rum sacred, and respected their right to sell it ; that as yet, 
it addressed arguments to no vender to induce him to abandon 
the traffic ; that it was, indeed, a political evil, but it was one 
they had unfortunately engaged in, and which the necessities of 
themselves and families compelled them to continue for the pres- 
ent ; that the society condemned no man for being a rumseller ; 
that it had no connection with the fanatics and incendiaries who 
denounced the business as sinful, and demanded its immediate 
abolition, — but, inasmuch as the society knew that the venders 
were anxious to get rid of the rum they unfortunately possessed, 
it had appointed agents who would gratuitously afford their aid 
in removing and emptying rum-casks, and it trusted the moral 
influence of this proffered aid would, in a century or more, effect 
the total abolition of the traffic. 

The absurdity of the conclusion, in the supposed case, is obvi- 
ous ; and did not prejudice impair our vision, we should see an 
equal absurdity in the professed expectations of colonizationists. 
But is our illustration a parallel case ? * No : for our ideal soci- 
ety does not profess to regard any other evil as greater than the 
indefinite continuance of the traffic, while the real one boldly 
and unequivocally declares for perpetual slavery in preference 
to emancipation, either immediate or gradual, without expatria- 
tion. Now if the expatriation of the whole body of slaves be 
both physically and morally impossible ; if the slaves could not 
be transported and maintained in Africa, were the masters wil- 
ling to surrender them ; and if the masters would not surrender 
them, even if they could instantly be transported and maintained, 
then it follows irresistibly, that the moral influence of the Ameri- 
can Colonization Society is to perpetuate slavery in the United 
States. 

We can scarcely persuade ourselves, that any honest coloni- 
zationists can, in view of all the facts which have been developed, 
seriously believe that slavery will ever be removed by coloniza- 
tion. Still there may be some who are indulging the hope 



112 jay's works. 

that this scheme is promoting emancipation. We entreat the 
attention of such to the proofs we will now offer, that the Society 
is in fact 

AN ANTI-ABOLITION ASSOCIATION. 

On the 9th of January, 1828, Mr. Harrison, of Virginia, in 
addressing the Society at its annual meeting, used the following 
language : 

" The Society having declared that it is in no wise allied to any Abo- 
lition Society in America or elsewhere, is ready when there is need, 
to pass A censure upon such societies in America." 11th Report, 
p. 14. 

The pledge thus given in hehalf, and in the presence of the 
Society, was published and circulated by the Board of Mana- 
gers. It was a gross violation of the constitution, and an 
unblushing outrage on the multiplied professions of the Society, 
that its only object was the colonization of free blacks. But we 
cannot understand the full meaning and unholy nature of this 
pledge, without adverting to the Abolition Societies to which it 
related. This pledge, be it remembered, had no reference to the 
associations noio known as Anti-Slavery Societies, and which 
are accused of a design to destroy the Union — to drench the 
land in human gore, and to produce by marriage an amalgama- 
tion of color. Such societies were unknown, such charges 
unheard of, when this pledge was given. The Abolition Soci- 
eties which were to be censured, were societies founded by Jay 
and Franklin, and which advocated (/radical emancipation. 

The first society ever formed, it is believed, for the abolition 
of slavery, was organized in the city of New York, January, 
1785, under the presidency of John Jay. The principles 
maintained by this society, may be gathered from the preamble 
to its constitution. 

" The benevolent Creator and Father of all men, having given them 
all an equal right to life, liberty, and property, no sovereign power on 
earth can justly deprive them of either, but in conformity to impartial 
government, and laws, to which they have expressly or tacitly con- 
sented. It is our duty, therefore, as free citizens and Christians, not 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 113 

only to regard with compassion the injustice done to those among us, 
who are held as slaves, but to endeavor, by lawful means, to enable 
them to share equally with us in the civil and religious liberty with which 
an indulgent Providence has blessed these States, and to which these 
our brethren are by nature as much entitled as ourselves." 

The next Abolition Society was that of Pennsylvania, founded 
in 1787, under the presidency of Franklin. Slave-holders 
were expressly excluded. The constitution declares, that it has 
pleased 

" The Creator of the world to make of one flesh all the children of 
men," and that it is the special duty of those who acknowledge the 
obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power to 
extend the blessings of freedom " to every part of our race." 

Abolition Societies gradually multiplied, and exercised a salu- 
tary influence in promoting emancipation at the North. But 
they were not confined to the North ; they soon sprang up in 
the slave States, and scattered and feeble rays of light began to 
pierce the dense cloud which brooded over the southern country. 
Unity of action and of purpose was secured by triennial con- 
ventions of delegates from the several societies. No organized 
opposition had ever been offered to these associations. The 
moral sense of the community, unperverted by colonization, 
would not then have tolerated the scenes we have since witnessed. 
The respect in which Abolition Societies were held, is evinced 
by the following extract from the journals of Congress : 

" House of Representatives, l§th Feb. 1809. 

" Resolved, That the Speaker be requested to acknowledge the 
receipt and acceptance of Clarkson's History of Slavery, presented by 
the American Convention, for promoting the abolition of slavery, and 
improving the condition of the Africans, and that the said work be 
deposited in the library." 

The Speaker accordingly returned an official letter of thanks 
to the convention. 

Only three months before Mr. Harrison, as herald of the Col- 
onization Society, proclaimed war against Abolition Societies, 
the convention met at Baltimore, the capital of a slave State. 



114 jay's works. 

To this convention delegates or communications were sent from 
the following Abolition Societies, viz. : 

New York, Anclover, Mass., 

Rhode Island, Williams College, Mass., 

Pennsylvania, Loudon Co., Virginia, 

Western Pennsylvania, N. Carolina, with 40 branches, 

Maryland, with 5 branches, Delaware, 

Tennessee, Centreville, Penn., 

West Tennessee, Brownsville, do. 

Munro Co., Ohio, 

This convention, among other measures, petitioned Congress 
for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and 
exhorted the friends of abolition to use their efforts to procure 
" the removal of all existing legal impediments in the way of 
educating the people of color." Such was the promising state 
of public feeling, at the very moment when the Colonization 
Society announced its crusade against Abolition. The vigor 
and constancy with which, it has been carried on to the present 
time, are known to all who have watched its progress. The 
Abolition Societies and their conventions have withered under 
the " censure " of their powerful enemy, and have shrunk from 
public notice. Within the last two years, they have been par- 
tially succeeded by more sturdy associations, named Anti-Slavery 
Societies, which, instead of quailing beneath the frowns of their 
foe, have dared to grapple with him in mortal conflict, and to 
stake the hopes of freedom on the issue. If, in this struggle, 
abolitionists have not always distinguished themselves by their 
courteous bearing, let it be recollected, that they believe the 
happiness of millions depends on their efforts ; and, also, that 
by their haughty adversary, they have been treated as wretches 
who deserve punishment ; not as the generous and disinterested 
champions of the oppressed and friendless. Let us observe the 
manner in which they are assailed by members of a religious 
society. 

" It (the Society) is nowise mingled or confounded with the broad- 
sweeping views of a, few fanatics in America, who would urge us on to 
the sudden and total abolition of slavery." Afr. Rep., Ill, 197. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 115 

" Come, ye abolitionists, away with your mid enthusiasm, your mis 
guided philanthropy." Afr. Rep., VLT, 100. 

« Eesolved, that we view all attempts to prejudice the public mind, 
or excite the popular feeling, on the subject of slavery, as unwise and 
injurious, and adapted to perpetuate the evil which it is proposed to 
eradicate." Col. Meeting at Northampton, Mass. Afr. Rep., VIII, 283. 

After a public discussion of the colonization scheme in Utica, 
the Common Council came to the rescue of the Society, by dis- 
charging resolutions against the abolitionists. For example : 

" Whereas, certain individuals now in our city, are disturbing the 
peace of the good citizens thereof, by inculcating sentiments which we 
deem demoralizing in themselves, and little short of treason towards 
the government of our country," &c, 

" Resolved, that, in the opinion of this meeting, it is the solemn 
duty of every patriot and philanthropist, to discountenance and oppose 
the efforts of Anti-Slavery Societies." Col. Soc. of Middletoion, Conn. 
6th March, 1834. 

It would have been, of course, unconstitutional to aid these 
efforts ; but it seems the Society had full authority to oppose 
them. In short, with colonization societies, every thing is con- 
stitutional that is expedient, and nothing that is not. 

" The emancipation, to which this resolution directs your attention, 
is not that unconstitutional and dangerous emancipation, contemplated 
by a few visionary enthusiasts, and a still fewer number of reckless 
incendiaries among us." Speech of Chancellor Walworth, at Col. Meet- 
ing in New York, 9th Oct., 1833. 

" I avail myself of this opportunity, to enter my_ solemn protest 
against the attempts which are making by a few fanatics. Let us talk 
no more of nullification ; the doctrine of immediate emancipation is a 
direct and palpable nullification of that Constitution which we have 
sworn to support." Speech of D. B. Ogden at New York Colonization 
Meeting. 

" We owe it to ourselves not to remain silent spectators while this 

Wild fire is running its course. We owe it to those misguided men, 

\ (the abolitionists,) to interpose and save them and their country from 

; the fatal effects of their mad speculations." Speech of Hon. T. Freling- 

[huysen, V. President, before Am. Col. Society, 21st Jan., 1834. 

We are not informed which article of the constitution of the 
' Society imposes on its members the onerous duty mentioned by 
the honorable gentleman. 

The abolitionists in New York gave notice of a meeting for 



116 jay's works. 

forming a City Anti-Slavery Society. In reference to this 
notice, the chairman of the Executive Committee of the New 
York Colonization Society, Mr. Stone, published in his paper, 
2d of Oct., 1833, the following from a correspondent : 

" Is it possible that our citizens can look quietly on, while the flames 
of discord are rising, — while even our pulpits are sought to be used for 
the base purpose of encouraging scenes of bloodshed in our land? If 
we do, can we look our Southern brethren in the face and say, we are 
opposed to interfering with their rights ? No, we cannot." * 

The hint thus kindly given, was readily taken, and a mob of 
five thousand scattered the abolitionists. After another mob, in 
July, had assaulted the dwellings and temples of abolitionists, 
this officer of a Christian benevolent society, thus stated the 
condition on which abolitionists might be permitted to enjoy 
the common rights of American citizens, security of person and 
freedom of speech, the press, and religious worship. 

" While, then, our civil authorities should receive the aid of every 
good citizen, in their efforts to put down the mobs now nightly engaged 
in deeds of violence, yet there should be a distinct understanding, that 
the protection of laiv, and the aid of the military, can only be enjoyed 
or expected, ON condition that the causes of these mischiefs shall be 
abated, and the outrages upon public feeling, from the forum, the 
pulpit, and the press, shall no more be repeated by these reckless 
incendiaries." Commercial Advertiser, 11th July, 1834. 

Another colonization editorf published the same day, and 
while the mob were committing their grossest outrages, the fol- 
lowing article : 

" Now we tell them, (the abolitionists,) that Avhen they openly and 
publicly promulgate doctrines which outrage public feeling, they have 
no right to demand protection of the people they insult. Ought not, 
we ask, our city authorities to make them understand this — to tell 
them that they prosecute their treasonable and beastly plans at 
their own peril?" N. Y. Courier and Enquirer, 11th July, 1834. 

* This communication was accompanied by an editorial admission of the 
civil rights of abolitionists. It is to be regretted, that the editor, as will be 
seen by the next quotation, afterwards proposed a condition on which alone, 
in his opinion, those rights should be protected. 

f Mr. James Watson Webb. 






AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 117 

On conditions similar to those proposed by these gentlemen, 
the Roman emperors were ever ready to afford protection 
to the Christian martyrs ; nor did the Spanish Inquisition 
require more, than that none should " promulgate doctrines " 
it disapproved. 

Far be it from us to insinuate, that the conduct of these two 
editors was in conformity with the advice or wishes of any respect- 
able colonizationists ; and candor requires the acknowledgment, 
that we have never heard it justified ; but it is unfortunately 
true, that the insults they have poured upon abolitionists, have 
been countenanced by the example of gentlemen from whom 
better things were expected. All this violence and obloquy are 
not without an object ; and that object is intimidation. Utterly 
vain is the hope of maintaining the cause of colonization, or of 
suppressing that of abolition, by discussion. In every instance 
in which colonizationists have ventured to meet their opponents 
in public disputation, they have invariably retired with diminished 
strength. Hence great efforts have been made by coloniza- 
tionists, and by the advocates of slavery, to prevent the public 
from ever listening to the facts and arguments adduced by the 
abolitionists. After a mob of five thousand had assembled to 
prevent the formation of the New York Anti-Slavery Society — 
after the most unfounded calumnies had been spread through 
the community against its members, the Society published an 
address, explaining their real sentiments and objects. One 
would have thought it an act of common justice, to give this 
address a candid perusal ; but such an act would not have been 
expedient, and accordingly the zealous editor of the Commercial 
Advertiser thus endeavored to prevent it : 

. " We are quite sure that a discerning public will consign it to obli- 
vion, by abstaining from a purchase of the pestilent document. Their 
curiosity, we hope, will not overstep their discretion, in furthering the 
purposes of the authors by its dissemination. Let this fla"?tious 
address descend to the tomb of the Capulets. The address in extenso 
we have not read." 

The abolitionists, on the contrary, are so far from, fearing the 
effects of discussion, that they are ever anxious to promote it ; 
11 



118 jay's works. 

and when an acrimonious colonization pamphlet* appeared 
against them, they provokingly advertised it for sale, and urged 
the public to read it.f 

In the war now waging between the abolitionists and coloni- 
zatiohists, a third party has come to the aid of the latter. Those 
who maintain the sinfulness of slavery, and the safety and duty 
of immediate emancipation, plant themselves on scriptural ground, 
and urge the promises, and threats, and commands of the word 
of God. They professedly act as Christians, and only as Chris- 
tians ; and it cannot be supposed that the infidel portion of the 
community view with indifference an opportunity of wounding 
Christianity through its zealous disciples. At the same time, 
the absence of Christian motive as a principle of the colonization 
scheme, and the countenance given by that scheme to most un- 
christian prejudices, naturally invite antichristian support. Cer- 
tain it is, that many infidel newspapers are zealous advocates of 
colonization, and that the mobs of our cities are always ready to 
espouse its cause. 

There is no evidence that, with the exception of certain 
editors, the mobs which disgraced the city of New York the 
last summer were instigated by members of the Society ; yet 
these mobs were its avowed champions. The first mob assem- 
bled on the 9th of July, at the Chatham street chapel, the place 
in which some anti-slavery meetings had recently been held ; 
and breaking open the doors, took possession of the building. 
They then organized, and appointing a chairman, passed resolu- 
tions approving of the Colonization Society ; and by a formal vote, 
adjourned till the next meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, — a 
very significant hint. The following guarded notice of this 
transaction, appeared the next day in one of the journals. 

"From the non-assemblage of the persons who had designed to 
occupy the chapel, it was evident that the objects of the meeting had 
been abandoned, and the friends of colonization thereupon entered, 
organized a meeting, passed resolutions in favor of their own opinions, 
and peaceably dispersed." New York Daily Advertiser. 

* Reese's Review. 

f See the New York Emancipator. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 119 

The mob did indeed adjourn as a colonization meeting, but 
they had too much business on their hands to disperse. They 
immediately proceeded to vindicate the honor of the American 
name, by mobbing the Bowery Theatre, in revenge for some 
insulting expressions said to have been used by an Engiish 
actor. 

" After finishing their work at the Bowery Theatre, the mob, 
(says the New York Journal of Commerce,) in a -very excited 
state, repaired to the residence of Lewis Tappan, (a prominent 
abolitionist,) and attacked it with bricks and stones. The door, 
window-blinds, shutters, &c, were soon demolished, after which 
the mob entered, broke up the furniture, and made a bonfire of 
it in the street." Such was the commencement of four days of 
riot and outrage, by the admirers of " the benevolent coloniza- 
tion system." The managers of the city Colonization Society, 
mortified at the character and conduct of their new allies, pub- 
lished a card declaring that the " tumultuous meetings " at 
which certain resolutions had been passed, approving the objects 
of the New York Colonization Society, " had been held without 
any previous knowledge of the Board," and recommending to 
every friend of the cause of colonization to abstain " from all 
participation in proceedings subversive of the rights of individuals, 
or in violation of the public peace" When before have the 
friends of a religious and benevolent cause needed such a recom- 
mendation ? 

The Journal of Commerce, a colonization paper, assigns 
infidelity as one of the causes of the riots. 

•'It was noticed, (it observes,) as a fact full of instruction, that last 
Sunday night, when many of the churches and lecture rooms were 
closed for fear of the mob, Tammany Hall was brilliantly lighted up 
for the meeting of infidels, who carried on their mummery without the 
slightest apprehension of danger. The buildings which have been 
attacked, are six churches, (belonging to four different denominations,) 
one school-house, occupied as a church, three houses of clergymen, a 
house and store occupied by elders of churches, and a number of 
houses occupied by colored families. Thus, with the exception 'of 
some colored persons, the vengeance of the mob has been exclusively 
directed against churches, ministers and elders. At the sacking of Mr. 
Tappan's house, a fellow was heard to say, that every rascal of a church 



120 jay's works. 

member ought to be thrown off the dock, or to that effect. "We think, 
therefore, we see inscribed on the banner of this guilty throng, enmity 

TO THE CROSS OF CHRIST." 

Yet this guilty throng commenced its operations with lauding 
the Colonization Society. 

In Utica, after a public discussion on Colonization, a mob 
assembled and burned in effigy a clergyman who had taken part 
against the Society ; and also a layman who had become dis- 
tinguished for his zeal in the temperance cause ; and a bundle of 
Temperance Recorders was committed to the flames. 

The following is from the New York Courier and Enquirer, 
12th of May, 1834, and is part of an article in defence of the 
Colonization Society, and in vituperation of the abolitionists. 

" Colleges and institutions are every year founded, not for the pur- 
poses of general education, but to initiate a new race of monks and 
fanatics in the arts and mysteries of clerical ambition, to teach them how 
best to subjugate the human mind, and render female weakness subser- 
vient to well-disciplined Jesuitism. One half of our colleges are nothing 
more than seminaries for educating uncompromising bigots," &c, &c. 

. In this very same article, we are assured " the Colonization 
Society holds out the only rational and practicable mode of bring- 
ing about the emancipation of the blacks ; " and we are warned 
against the "accursed, and disorganizing, and incendiary de- 
vices," of the abolitionists. 

Soon after the mobs, a poem was published, entitled, " Fanat- 
icism Unveiled." The author, in his advertisement, declaims 
against the " crusade which is now waged by a few wretched 
fanatics against the Colonization Society." Of the religious 
character of this poetical champion of the Society, some estimate 
may be made from the following lines : 

" And do not dunces spend their cash on 
Such things as we have brought in fashion ? 
Fictitious tales in aid of piety, 
Invented for the Tract Society. 
Sectarian Seminaries made 
To teach the true fanatic trade ; 
And schools where infancy is told, 
That while one world is paved with gold, 
Another lying somewhat lower, 
With children's skulls is sprinkled o'er." 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 121 

The Society unquestionably comprises a vast number of as 
pure and devoted Christians as can be found in this or any other 
country ; and we are fully persuaded, that they verily believe, 
that in supporting colonization, they are doing God service. 
The zealous cooperation they are now receiving from persons of 
very opposite character from themselves, should lead them to 
inquire whether they may not be mistaken. 

It certainly does not follow that a system must be bad, be- 
cause bad men support it ; but it does follow, that when mobs and 
infidels espouse a particular object, it is because that object is 
recommended to them by other than religious considerations. 
Yet colonizationists are fond of representing their Society as a 
religious institution; and the ministers of the Gospel are 
earnestly urged to preach annual sermons in its behalf. 

That multitudes of religious men belong to the Society is not 
denied, but the participation of such men in an object, does not 
necessarily render it a religious object: otherwise the slave 
trade was a Christian commerce, because John Newton was a 
slave-trader; and Free-Masonry must be a holy fraternity, 
since it can boast the names of more good men than were ever 
enrolled in the ranks of colonization. But in what sense can the 
Society be termed a religious one ? It is not professedly founded 
on any one principle of the Gospel of Christ. It exercises 
no one act of benevolence towards the free blacks in this 
country ; and in transporting them to Africa, it is by its own 
confession removing nuisances. It takes no measures to Chris- 
tianize Africa, but landing on its shores an ignorant and vicious 
population. It employs no missionary, it sends no Bible, and it 
cannot point to a single native, converted to the faith of Jesus 
through its instrumentality. On the contrary, may we not, in 
reference to the facts disclosed in the preceding pages, affirm, 
without the imputation of bigotry or prejudice, that the general 
influence of the Society is decidedly anti-christian ? We have 
seen that it practically tends to the debasement and persecution 
of the free blacks ; to the hardening of the consciences of the 
slave-holders, and to the indefinite continuance of slavery. 

11* 



122 jay's works. 

The objects of the Society, as stated in the declarations of its 
orators, are of such vast importance, and such god-like benevo- 
lence, that it is no wonder good men have been so dazzled by 
the gorgeous visions presented to their imaginations, as to have 
omitted to scrutinize the machinery by which these visions are 
to be realized. 

No one surely needs an apology for having believed in coloni- 
zation, when Wilbekfobce could thus express himself: 

" You have, gladdened my heart by convincing me, that sanguine as 
had been my hopes of the happy effects to be produced by your insti- 
tution, all my anticipations are scanty and cold compared with the 
reality." Letter to Mr. Cresson. 15th Rep., p. 15. 

No one surely needs to blush at acknowledging that he has 
been deceived in the Society since Wilberforce placed his 
name at the head of a protest against it. The following ex- 
tract from this protest will show how truly the Society is now 
estimated by British philanthropists. 

" Our objections to it are briefly these : while we believe its pretexts 
to be delusive, we are convinced that its real effects are of the most 
dangerous nature. It takes its root from a cruel prejudice and aliena- 
tion in the whites of America, against the colored people, slave or free. 
This being its source, the effects are what might be expected — that it 
fosters and increases the spirit of caste, already so unhappily predomi- 
nant — that it widens the breach between the two races — exposes the 
colored people to great practical persecution, in order to force them to 
emigrate : and finally is calculated to swallow up and divert that feeling 
which America, as a Christian and a free country, connot but enter- 
tain, that slavery is alike incompatible with the law of God, and the 
well being of man, whether of the enslaver or the enslaved. We must 
be understood utterly to repudiate the principles of the American Colo- 
nization Society." 

The opponents of slavery in England, as well as here, at first 
hailed the Society as an auxiliary, and the anti-slavery societies 
there, in the warmth of their zeal, began to remit contributions 
to its funds : by these same people the Society is now regarded 
with detestation. Probably no religious periodical possesses in 
an equal degree the confidence of the religious community here, 
as the London Christian Observer. The Observer formerly 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 123 

commended the Society. Hear the present sentiments of its 
late editor, the distinguished Z. Macauley, Esq., M. P. 

" The unchristian prejudice of color, which alone has given birth to 
the Colonization Society, though varnished over with other more plausi- 
ble pretences, and veiled under a profession of Christian regard for the 
temporal and spiritual interests of the negro, which is belied by the 
whole course of its reasonings, and the spirit of its measures, is so 
detestable in itself, that I think it ought not to be tolerated ; but 
on the contrary, ought to be denounced and opposed by all humane, 
and especially all pious persons in this country." Letter, lAth July, 
1833, to Mr. Garrison. 

For a quarter of a century, William Allen, a London Quaker, 
has been prominent in every good work, and his name is familiar 
to all acquainted with the great catholic institutions of England. 
This eminent and zealous philanthropist thus writes : 

" Having heard thy exposition of the origin and main object of the 
American Colonization Society, at the meeting on the 13th inst., at 
Exeter Hall, and having read their own printed documents, I scarcely 
know how adequately to express my surprise and indignation, that 
my correspondents in North America should not have informed me 
i of the real principles of the said Society ; and also, that Elliott Cresson, 
knowing as he must have known the abominable sentiments it has 
printed and published, should have condescended to become its agent." 
Letter, 15th of 7th Month, 1833. 

Mr. Buxton, the successor of Mr. Wilberforce as the parlia- 
mentary leader in the cause of abolition, thus expresses himself: 

" My views of the Colonization Society you are aware of. They do 
not fall far short of those expressed by my friend Mr. Cropper, when 
he termed its objects diabolical." Letter of July 12th, 1833. 

But is it only in Britain that good men have found themselves 
disappointed in the Society ? "Who compose our present anti- 
slavery societies ? Pious, conscientious men, who, with scarcely 
an exception, were formerly advocates of colonization. A cler- 
gyman of Massachusetts, in the following passage, expresses 
the sentiments of a numerous and increasing body. 

" I have been constrained to withdraw my confidence and cooperation 
from this scheme. It is a scheme in which I was once deeply in- 
terested. I have spoken and preached, and written and taken con- 
tributions in its behalf. I did not then understand the real nature 
and tendency of the scheme. I meant well in espousing it, but I now 
see my error and my sin ; and though it was a sin of ignorance, I 
desire to repent of it." 



124 jay's works. 

Almost daily do we hear of colonizationists awaking as from 
a dream, and expressing their astonishment and regret at the 
delusion into which they had fallen. 

To the Christian members of the Society, we would now ad- 
dress ourselves, and ask, Have we not proved enough to induce 
you to pause, to examine, and to pray, before you longer lend 
your names, and contribute your funds to the purposes of coloni- 
zation ? Do no secret misgivings of conscience now trouble you ? 
and are you perfectly sure that in supporting the Society, you 
are influenced by the precepts of the Gospel, and not by preju- 
dice against an unhappy portion of the human family ? If on a 
full investigation of the subject, you discover that colonization is 
not what you believed and hoped it was, remember that it is 
your duty to obviate, as far as possible, by a frank and open 
declaration of your opinion, the evil your example has done. 
Be not ashamed, be not slow to follow Wilberforce in entering 
your protest against the Society. If that Society leads to the 
degradation and oppression of the poor colored man — if it re- 
sists every effort to free the slave — if it misleads the con- 
science of the slave-holder, you are bound, your God requires 
you to oppose it, not in secret, but before the world. Soon will 
you stand at the judgment seat of Christ ; there will you meet 
the free negro, the slave, and the master, — take care lest they 
all appear as witnesses against you. 



PART II 

AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY 

CHARACTER OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. 

TnE principles professed by the American Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety, are set forth in the following articles of its Constitution, viz. : 

Article 2. The object of this Society if? the entire abolition of 
slavery in the United States. While it admits that each State, in which 
slavery exists, has by the Constitution of the United States, the exclu- 
sive right to legislate in regard to its abolition in that State, it shall 
aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments addressed to their 
understandings and consciences, that slave-holding is a heinous crime 
in the sight of God ; and that the duty, safety, and best interests of all 
concerned, require its immediate abandonment, without expatriation, 
j The Society will also endeavor in a constitutional way to influence 
; Congress to put an end to the domestic slave-trade, and to abolish 
: slavery in all those portions of our common country which come under 
its control, especially in the District of Columbia, and likewise to pre- 
'. vent the extension of it to any State that may hereafter be admitted to 
the Union. 

Article 3. This Society shall aim to elevate the character and 

• condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, 

' moral and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice ; 

that thus they may, according to their intellectual and moral worth, 

; share an equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges ; but 



126 jay's works. 

the Society will never in any way, countenance the oppressed in vin- 
dicating their rights, by resorting to physical force. 

Article 4. Any person who consents to the principles of this Con- 
stitution, who contributes to the funds of this Society, and is not a 
slave-holder, may be a member of this Society, and shall be entitled to 
vote at its meetings. 

Here we have great moral principles frankly and unequivocally 
avowed ; the objects to be pursued are distinctly stated ; and 
none are permitted to join in the pursuit of these objects without 
assenting to the principles which avowedly render their at- 
tainment desirable. The whole structure of the Society, there- 
fore, is totally different from the Colonization Society ; this 
being founded on principle, that on expediency; this availing 
itself only of certain professed motives, that inviting the cooper- 
ation of motives of all sorts, however contradictory. 

In order to judge of the fitness of the objects contemplated by 
the Society, we must first inquire into the soundness of the 
principles by which they are recommended. 

The first great principle of the Society, and indeed the one 
from which all the others are deduced, is the sinfulness of slavery. 
To determine whether slavery as it exists in the United States 
is sinful, we must know what it is. Where an institution is 
unavoidably liable to great abuses, those abuses may fairly be 
taken in account in estimating its true character ; but in order to 
avoid all captious objections, we will now inquire, what are the 
lawful, or rather legal features of American slavery, and we 
will leave wholly out of view, all acts of oppression and ci-uelty 
not expressly sanctioned by law. The following definitions of 
American slavery, are, it will be perceived, from high authority : 

" A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. 
The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, his labor ; 
he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but which 
must belong to his master." Louisiana Code, Art. 3. 

" Slaves shall be deemed, taken, reputed and adjudged to be chattels 
personal in the hands of their masters and possessors, to all intents and 
purposes whatsoever." Laws of South Carolina — Brevard's Digest, 
229. 

It will be observed that these definitions apply to slaves, with- 
out distinction of sex or age. 






AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 127 

But not only are those now in servitude, but their children 
after them, the subjects of these definitions. 

The law of South Carolina says of slaves, " all their issue 
and offspring born or to be born, shall be, and they are hereby 
declared to be and remain forever hereafter absolute slaves, 
and shall follow the condition of the mother." 

Slavery is not confined to color. Mr. Paxton, a Virginia 
writer, declares that " the best blood in Virginia flows in the 
veins of the slaves." In the description lately given of a fugitive 
slave in the public papers, it was stated, " He has sometimes 
been mistaken for a white man." The following from a Missouri 
paper proves that a white man may without a mistake be ad- 
judged a slave. 

" A case of a slave suing for his freedom, was tried a few days since 
in Lincoln county, of which the following is a brief statement of the 
particulars. A youth of about ten years of age sued for his freedom 
on the ground that he was a free white person. The court granted his 
petition to sue as a pauper upon inspection of his person. Upon his 
trial before the jury he was examined by the jury and by two learned 
physicians, all of whom concurred in the opinion that very little if any 
trace of negro blood could be discovered by any of the external ap- 
pearances. All the physiological marks of distinction which charac- 
terize the African descent had disappeared. 

" His skin was fair, his hair soft, straight, fine and white, his eyes 
blue, but rather disposed to the hazle-nut color ; nose prominent, the 
lips small and completely covering the teeth, his head round and 
well formed, forehead high and prominent, the ears large, the tibia of 
the leg straight, the feet hollow. Notwithstanding these evidences of 
his claims, he was proven to be a descendant of a mulatto woman, and 
that his progenitors on his mother's side had been and still were slaves ; 
consequently, he was found to be a slave." 

The laws of South Carolina and Virginia expressly recognize 
Indian slaves. 

Not only do the laws acknowledge and protect existing slavery, 
but they provide for reducing free persons to hereditary bondage. 
In South Carolina, fines are imposed on free negroes for certain 
offences, and in default of payment, they are made slaves. If a 
colored citizen of any other State enters Georgia, he is fined, 
and if he cannot raise the money, he is sentenced to perpetual 
slavery, and his children after him. In Maryland, if a free negro 
marries a white, the negro becomes a slave. In almost every 



128 jay's works. 

slave State, if a free negro cannot prove that he is free, he is by 
law sold at public auction as a slave for life. This is both law 
and practice in the District of Columbia, and with the sanction 
of the Congress of the United States. In no civilized country 
but the slave States, are children punished for the crimes of 
their parents ; but in these, the children of free blacks, to the 
latest posterity, are condemned to servitude for the trivial of- 
fences, and often for the most innocent act of their ancestors. 

It necessarily follows from the legal definitions we have given 
of a slave, that he is subjected to an absolute and irresponsible 
despotism. 

The master has in point of fact the same power over his 
slave that he has over his horse. Some few laws there may be, 
forbidding the master to treat his slave with cruelty, and so the 
common law everywhere forbids cruelty to beasts ; but it is far 
easier to enforce the latter than the former. Any spectator of 
cruelty to a beast, may ordinarily be a witness against the 
offender ; but a slave may be mutilated or murdered with im- 
punity in the presence of hundreds, provided their complexions 
are colored ; and even should the crime be proved by competent 
testimony, the master is to be tried by a court and jury who are 
all interested in maintaining the supreme authority of slave- 
holders. But although no laws can in fact restrain the power 
of the master, yet laws to a certain degree indicate what kind of 
treatment is tolerated by public opinion. Thus when we find 
the laws of South Carolina limiting the time which slaves may 
be compelled to labor, to fifteen hours a day, we may form some 
opinion of the amount of toil which Southern masters think it 
right to inflict upon the slaves ; and when we recollect that the 
laws of Maryland, Virginia and Georgia, forbid that the crimi- 
nals in their penitentiaries shall be made to labor more than ten 
hours a day, we discover the relative place which white felons 
and unoffending slaves occupy in the sympathies of slave-holders. 

The slave is, at all times, liable to be punished at the pleasure 
of his master ; and although the law does not warrant him in 
murdering the slave, it expressly justifies him in killing him, if 
he dares to resist ; that is, if the slave does not submit to any 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 129 

chastisement which a hrutal master may of his sovereign pleasure 
choose to inflict, he may legally be shot through the head. 

In South Carolina, if a slave be killed " on a sudden heat or 
passion, or by undue correction," the murderer is to pay a fine 
and be imprisoned six months. What would be thought of such 
a punishment for the murder of a white apprentice ? 

In Missouri, a master is by law expressly authorized to im- 
prison his slave during pleasure, and thus may a human being 
be legally incarcerated for life without trial, or even the allega- 
tion of a crime. 

The despotism of the slave-holder, be it remembered, is a 
negotiable despotism ; it is daily and hourly bought and sold, 
and may at any moment be delegated to the most brutal of the 
species. 

The slave, being himself property, can own no property. He 
may labor fifteen hours a day, but he acquires nothing by his 
labor. In South Carolina, a slave is not permitted to keep a 
boat, or to raise and breed for his own benefit, any horses, cattle, 
sheep, or hogs, under pain of forfeiture, and any person may take 
such articles from him. 

In Georgia, the master is fined thirty dollars for svffering his 
slave to hire himself to another for his own benefit. In Mary- 
land, the master forfeits thirteen dollars for each month that his 
slave is permitted to receive wages on his own account. 

In Virginia, every master is finable who permits a slave to 
work for himself at wages. In North Carolina, " all horses, 
cattle, hogs, or sheep, that shall belong to any slave, or be of 
any slave's mark in this State, shall be seized and sold by the 
county wardens." 

In Mississippi, the master is forbidden, under the penalty of 
fifty dollars, to let a slave raise cotton for himself, " or to keep 
stock of any description." 

Such is the anxiety of the slave laws to repress every benev- 
olent desire of the master to promote in the slightest degree the 
independence of the slave. 

Slaves, being property, are like cattle liable to be leased and 
mortgaged by their owners, or sold on execution for debt. 
12 



130 jay's works. 

A slave having no rights, cannot appear in a court of justice 
to ask for redress of injuries. So far as he is the subject of 
injury, the law regards him only as a brute, and redress can only 
be demanded and received by the owner. The slave may be 
beaten, (robbed he cannot be,) his wife and children may be 
insulted and abused in his presence, and he can no more institute 
an action for damages, than his master's horse. But cannot he 
be protected by his master's right of action ? No : The master 
must prove special injury to his property, to recover damages. 
Any man may with perfect impunity whip another's slave, unless 
he so injure him as to occasion " a loss of service, or at least a 
diminution of the faculty of the slave for bodily labor." Such 
is the decision of the Supreme Court of Maryland. In Louisi- 
ana, if a third person maim a slave, so that he is " forever ren- 
dered unable to work," the offender pays to the owner the value 
of the slave, and is also to be at the expense of his maintenance ; 
but the unfortunate slave, mutilated or crippled for life, receives 
not the slightest compensation. The master's right of action is 
a protection to his property, not of the comfort or security of the 
slave ; indeed, it tends to degrade the latter to the level of the 
other live stock on his master's farm. 

A necessary consequence of slavery, is the absence of the 
marriage relation. No slave can commit bigamy, because the 
law knows no more of the marriage of slaves, than it does of 
the marriage of brutes. A slave may, indeed, be formally mar- 
ried, but so far as legal rights and obligations are concerned, it 
is an idle ceremony. His wife may, at any moment, be legally 
taken from him, and sold in the market. The slave laws utterly 
nullify the injunction of the Supreme Lawgiver, " What God 
hath joined, let not man put asunder." 

Of course, these laws do not recognize the parental relation 
as belonging to slaves. A slave has no more legal authority 
over his child, than a cow over her calf. 

The Legislature of the slave States, when legislating respect- 
ing slaves, seem regardless alike of the claims and the affections 
of our common nature. No right is more sacred, or more uni- 
versally admitted, than that of self-preservation ; but the 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 131 

wretched slave, whether male or female, is denied the right of 

self-defence against the brutality of any person whomsoever 

having a white skin. Thus the law of Georgia declares, " if 

any slave shall presume to strike any white person, upon trial or 

conviction before the justice or justices, according to the direc- 

i tions of this act, he shall, for the first offence, suffer such punish- 

i ment as the said justice or justices shall in their discretion think 

j fit, not extending to life or limb ; and for the second offence, suf- 

j fer DEATH." 

The same law prevails in South Carolina, except that death 
< is the penalty for the third offence. 

In Maryland, the justice may order the offender's ears to be 

j cropped. In Kentucky, " any negro, mulatto, or Indian, bond 

ovfree" who " shall at any time lift his hand in opposition to 

any white person, shall receive thirty lashes on his or her bare 

back, well laid on, by order of the justice." 

In South Carolina, " if any slave, who shall be out of the 
house or plantation Avhere such slaves shall live or shall be usu- 
ally employed, or without some white person in company with 
such slaves, shall refuse to submit to undergo the examination of 
any white person, it shall be lawful for any white person to pur- 
sue, apprehend, and moderately correct such slave ; and if such 
slave shall assault and strike such white person, such slave may 

be LAWFULLY KILLED." 

We have seen that the slave laws regard the slave, so far as 
human rights and enjoyments and social relations are concerned, 
as a mere brute ; we are now to see, that so far as he can be 
made to suffer for his acts, he is regarded as an intelligent and 
responsible being. 

Divine equity has established the rule, that the servant which 
knew not his master's will, and did commit things worthy of 
stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. If there was ever a 
case to which this rule was applicable, it is to the unlettered, 
ignorant, brutalized slave, intentionally deprived of the ability 
to read the laws of God or man. A code of laws prepared for 
the government of such beings, one would suppose would be 
distinguished for its lenity ; and in the mildness of its penalties, 



132 jay's works. 

would form a striking contrast to a code for the government of 
the enlightened and instructed part of the community, Avhose 
offences would, of course, be aggravated by the opportunities 
they had enjoyed of learning their duty. Alas, the slave code 
punishes acts not mala in se with a rigor which public opinion 
would not tolerate for a moment, if exercised towards white 
felons, and it visits crimes with penalties far heavier, when com- 
mitted by the poor ignorant slave, than it docs when they are 
perpetrated by the enlightened citizen. 

Thus in Georgia, any person may inflict twenty lashes on the 
bare back of a slave found without license off the plantation, or 
without the limits of the town to which he belongs. So also 
in Mississippi, Virginia, and Kentucky, at the discretion of a 
justice. 

In South Carolina and Georgia, any person finding more than 
seven slaves together in the highway without a white person, 
may give each one twenty lashes. 

In Kentucky, Virginia, and Missouri, a slave, for keeping a 
gun, powder, shot, a club, or other weapon whatsoever, offensive 
or defensive, may be whipped thirty-nine lashes by order of a 
justice. 

In North Carolina and Tennessee, a slave travelling without 
a pass, or being found in another person's negro quarters, or 
kitchen, may be whipped forty lashes, and every slave, in whose 
company the visitor is found, twenty lashes. 

In Louisiana, a slave, for being on horseback without the writ- 
ten permission of his master, incurs twenty-five lashes ; for keep- 
ing a clog, the like punishment. 

By the law of Maryland, for " rambling, riding, or going 
abroad in the night, or riding horses in the day-time, without 
leave," a slave may be whipt, cropt, or branded on the cheek 
with the letter It, or otherwise punished, not extending to life, 
or " so as to render him unfit for labor." 

Such are a few specimens only of the punishments inflicted 
on slaves, for acts not criminal, and which it is utterly impossible 
they should generally know are forbidden by law. 

Let us now view the laws of the slave States in relation to 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 133 

crimes, and we shall find that their seventy towards blacks and 
whites, is in inverse ratio to the moral guilt of the offenders. 

In Virginia, the laws have recently been revised, and by the 
revised code, there are seventy-one offences for which the pen- 
alty is DEATn, when committed by slaves, and imprisonment 
when by whites.* 

In Mississippi, the number of these offences is thirty-eight, 
or rather many of them are not punishable at all, when com- 
mitted by whites : as, for instance, attempting to burn out-build- 
ings, to commit forgery, to steal a horse, &c 3 &c. 

Imprisonment of a slave as a punishment for crime, except 
in Louisiana, is utterly unknown in the slave States. To shut 
him up in prison, would be depriving his master of his labor, 
and burthening the public with his maintenance ; it is, therefore, 
more economical to flog him for trifles, and to hang him for seri- 
ous offences. 

Where human life is held so cheap, and human suffering so 
little regarded, it is not to be expected that the dispensers of 
slave justice will submit to be troubled with all those forms and 
ceremonies which the common law has devised for the protection 
of innocence. "We have seen that, in many instances, any white 
person may instanter discharge the functions of judge, jury, and 
executioner. In innumerable instances, all these functions are 
united in a single justice of the peace ; and in South Carolina, 
Virginia, and Louisiana, life may be taken, according to law, 
without intervention' of grand or petit jurors. In othefc ^States, 
a trial by jury is granted in capital cases ; but in no one State, 
it is believed, is it thought worth while to trouble a grand jury 
with presenting a slave. In most of the slave States, the ordi- 
nary tribunal for the trial of slaves charged with offences not 
capital, is composed of justices and freeholders, or of justices 
only. A white man cannot be convicted of misdemeanor, except 
by the unanimous verdict of twelve of his peers. In Louisiana, 
if the eourt is equally divided as to the guilt of a slave, judgment 
is rendered against him. 



enumeration of these offences, together with references to the stat- 
uded to in this work, may be found in " (Stroud's Sketch of the Slave 



*An 
utes alluded 
Laws.' 

12* 



134 jay's works. 

In 1832, thirty-five slaves were executed at Charleston, in 
pursuance of the sentence of a court, consisting of two justices 
and five freeholders, on a charge of intended insurrection. No 
indictments, no summoning of jurors, no challenges for cause or 
favor, no seclusion of the triers from intercourse with those who 
might bias their judgment, preceded this unparalleled legal de- 
struction of human life. 

However much we may pride ourselves, as a nation, on the 
general diffusion of the blessings of education, it ought to be 
recollected that these blessings are forcibly withheld from two 
millions of our inhabitants ; or that one-sixth of our whole pop- 
ulation are doomed by law to the grossest ignorance. 

A law of South Carolina, passed in 1800, authorizes the inflic- 
tion of twenty lashes on every slave found in an assembly con- 
vened for the purpose of " mental instruction," held in a confined 
or secret place, although in the presence of a white. Another 
law imposes a fine of £100 on any person who may teach a 
slave to write. An act of Virginia, of 1829, declares every 
meeting of slaves at any school, by day or night, for instruction 
in reading or writing, an unlawful assembly, and any justice 
may inflict twenty lashes on each slave found in such school. 

In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or to sell 
or give him any book (Bible not excepted) or pamphlet, is pun- 
ished with thirty-nine lashes, or imprisonment, if the offender 
be a free negro, but if a white, then with a fine of $200. The 
reason for this law, assigned in its preamble is, that " teaching 
slaves to read and write, tends to excite dissatisfaction in their 
minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion." 

In Georgia, if a white teach a free negro or slave to read or 
write, he is fined $500, and imprisoned at the discretion of the 
court ; if the offender be a colored man, bond or free, he is to be 
fined or whipped at the discretion of the court. Of course a 
father may be flogged for teaching his own child. This barbar- 
ous law was enacted in 1829. 

In Louisiana, the penalty for teaching slaves to read or write, 
is one year's imprisonment. 

These are specimens of the efforts made by slave legislatures, 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 135 

to enslave the minds of their victims ; and we have surely no 
reason to hope that their souls are regarded with more com- 
passion. 

In vain has the Eedeemer of the world given the command 
to preach the gospel to every creature ; his professed disciples 
in the slave States have issued a counter order ; and as we have 
already seen, have by their laws, incapacitated 2,000,000 of their 
fellow-men from complying with the injunction, "search the 
Scriptures." Not only are the slaves debarred from reading 
the wonderful things of God — they are practically prevented, 
with a few exceptions, from even hearing of them. 

In Georgia, any justice of the peace may, at his discretion, 
break up any religious assembly of slaves, and may order each 
slave present to be " corrected without trial, by receiving on the 
bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch or cow-skin." 

In South Carolina, slaves may not meet together for the pur- 
pose of " religious worship " before sunrise or after sunset, unless 
the majority of the meeting be composed of white persons, under 
the penalty of twenty lashes well laid on. As it will be rather 
difficult for the slave to divine before he goes to the meeting, 
how many blacks and how many whites will be present, and of 
course which color will have the "majority," a due regard for 
his back will keep him from the meeting. 

In Virginia, all evening meetings of slaves at any meeting- 
house are unequivocally forbidden. 

In Mississippi, the law permits the master to suffer his slave 
to attend the preaching of a white minister. 

It is very evident that when public opinion tolerates such 
laws, it will not tolerate the general religious instruction of the 
slaves. True it is, a master may carry or send his slaves to the 
parish church, and true it is that some do attend, and receive 
benefit from their attendance. 

On this, as well as on every other subject relating to slavery, 
we would rather fall short of, than exceed the truth. We will 
not assert there are no Christians among the slaves, for we trust 
there are some. When, however, we recollect, that they are 
denied the Scriptures, and all the usual advantages of the Sun- 



136 jay's works. 

day school, and are forbidden to unite among themselves in acts 
of social worship and instruction, and that almost all the ser- 
mons they hear are such as are addressed to educated whites, 
and of course above their own comprehension, we may form 
some idea of the obstacles opposed to their spiritual improvement. 
Let it be also recollected that every master possesses the tre- 
mendous power of keeping his slaves in utter ignorance of their 
Maker's will, and of their own immortal destinies. And now 
with all these facts and their consequences and tendencies in 
remembrance, we ask if we do not make a most abundant and 
charitable allowance when we suppose that 245,000 slaves pos- 
sess a saving knowledge of the religion of Christ ? And yet 
after this admission, one which probably no candid person will 
think too limited, there will remain in the bosom of our country, 
two millions of human beings, Avho, in consequence of our 
laws, are in a state of heathenism ! But probably many will 
refuse their assent to this conclusion without further and more 
satisfactory evidence of its correctness. To such persons we 
submit the following testimony, furnished by slave-holders them- 
selves. In 1831, the Rev. Charles C. Jones preached a sermon 
before two associations of planters in Georgia, one of Liberty 
County, and the other of Mcintosh County. This sermon is 
before us, and we quote from it. 

" Generally speaking, they (the slaves) appear to us to be without 
God and without hope in the world, a nation of heathen in our 
very midst. We cannot cry out against the Papists for -withholding the 
Scriptures from the common people, and keeping them in ignorance of 
the way of life ; for we toithhold the Bible from our servants, and keep 
them in ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it 
read and explained to them. The cry of our perishing servants comes 
up to us from the sultry plains as they bend at their toil — it comes up 
to us from their humble cottages when they return at evening to rest 
their weary limbs — it comes up to us from the midst of their ignorance 
and superstition, and adultery and lewdness. We have manifested no 
emotions of horror at abandoning the souls of our servants to the ad-: 
versary, the roaring lion that walketh about seeking whom he may 
devour." 

On the 5th of December, 1833, a committee of the Synod of 
South Carolina and Georgia, to whom was referred the subject 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 137 

of the religious instruction of the colored population, made a 
report which has been published, and in which this language is 
used : 

" Who would credit it, that in these years of revival and benevolent 
effort, in this Christian republic, there are over TWO millions of 
human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some respects in 
a worse condition ? From long-continued and close observation, we 
believe that their moral and religious condition is such that they may 
justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will 
bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world. The 
negroes are destitute of the Gospel, and ever loill be under the present 
state of things. In the vast field extending from an entire State beyond 
the Potomac to the Sabine river, and from the Atlantic to the Ohio, 
there are to the best of our knowledge not twelve men exclusively 
devoted to the religious instruction of the negroes. In the present 
state of feeling in the South, a ministry of their own color could neither 
be obtained nor tolerated. 

"But do not the negroes have access to the Gospel through the 
stated ministry of the whites ? We answer, No ; the negroes have no 
regular and efficient ministry ; as a matter of course, no churches ; 
neither is there sufficient room in white churches for their accommoda- 
tion. We know of hut Jive churches in the slave-holding States built 
expressly for their use ; these are all in the State of Georgia. We may 
now inquire if they enjoy the privileges of the Gospel in their own 
houses, and on our plantations. Again we return a negative answer. 
They have no Bibles to read by their own firesides — they have no 
family altars ; and when in affliction, sickness, or death, they have no 
minister to address to them the consolations of the Gospel, nor to bury 
them with solemn and appropriate services." 

In a late number of the Charleston (S. C) Observer, a cor- 
respondent remarked : 

" Let us establish missionaries among our own negroes, who in view 
of religious knowledge, are as debasingly ignorant as any one on the 
coast of Africa ; for I hazard the assertion, that throughout the bounds 
of our synod, there are at least one hundred thousand slaves, speaking 
the same language as ourselves, who never heard of the plan of salva- 
tion by a Redeemer." 

The editor, instead of contradicting this broad assertion, adds : 
j " We fully concur with what our correspondent has said respect- 
1 ing the benighted heathen among ourselves." 

Such is American slavery, — a system which classes with the 
I beasts of the field, over whom dominion has been given to man, 
; an intelligent and accountable being, the instant his Creator has 



138 jay's works. 

breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Over this infant 
heir of immortality, no mother has a right to watch, no father 
may guide his feeble steps, check his wayward appetites and 
train him for future usefulness, happiness and glory. Torn from 
his parents, and sold in the market, he soon finds himself laboring 
among strangers under the whip of a driver, and his task aug- 
menting with his ripening strength. Day after day and year 
afer year is he driven to the cotton or sugar-field, as the ox to 
the furrow. No hope of reward lightens his toil; the subject of 
insult, the victim of brutality, the laws of his country afford him 
no redress ; his wife, such only in name, may at any moment be 
dragged from his side ; his children, heirs only of his misery 
and degradation, are but articles of merchandise ; his mind, stupi- 
fied by his oppressors, is wrapped in darkness ; his soul, no man 
careth for it ; his body, worn with stripes and toil, is at length 
committed to the earth, like the brute that perisheth. 

This is the system which the American Anti-Slavery Society 
declares to be sinful, and ought therefore to be immediatly 
abolished ; and this is the system which the American Coloni- 
zation Society excuses, and which, it contends, ought to be per- 
petual, rather than its victims should enjoy their rights in " the 
white man's land." 

To one Avhose moral sense has not been perverted, it would 
seem a temerity bordering on blasphemy, to contend that such a 
system can be approved by a just and holy God, or sanctioned 
by the precepts of his blessed Gospel. Slavery, we are told, is 
not forbidden in the Bible ; but who will dare to say that cruelty 
and injustice and compulsory heathenism are not? 

"We are often reminded, that St. Paul exhorts slaves to be 
obedient to their masters ; but so he does subjects to their rulers. 
If, in the one instance, he justified slavery, so did he despotism 
in the other. The founder of Christianity and his apostles, 
interfered not with political institutions, but laid down rules for 
the conduct of individuals ; and St. Paul, in requiring masters to 
give their servants that which is just and equal, virtually con- 
demned the whole system of slavery, since he who receives 
what is just and equal cannot be a slave. If it was right in the 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 139 

time of St. Paul to hold white men as slaves, would it be wrong 
to do so now ? If slavery is lawful now, it must have been 
lawful in its commencement, since perseverance in wrong can 
never constitute right. Let it be explained how free men with 
their posterity, to the latest generation, can now be lawfully 
reduced to slavery, and forever kept in ignorance of the duties 
and consolations of Christianity, and we will unite with those 
who justify American slavery. 



CHAPTER II 



PROPOSED OBJECTS AND MEASURES OP THE AMERICAN ANTI- 
SLAVERY SOCIETY CENSURE OP ABOLITIONISTS. 

The next great principle maintained by the Society is, that 
slavery being sinful, it ought immediately to cease. Admitting 
the premises, the conclusion seems irresistible. Sin is opposi- 
tion to the will of our Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. His 
wisdom and goodness are alike infinite, and if slavery be incon- 
sistent with his will, it must necessarily be inconsistent with the 
welfare of his creatures. Reason and revelation, moreover, 
assure us that God will punish sin ; and therefore to contend 
that it is necessary or expedient to continue in sin, is to impeach 
every attribute of the Deity, and to brave the vengeance of 
Omnipotence. 

These principles lead the Society to aim at effecting the fol- 
lowing objects, viz. : 

1st. The immediate abolition of slavery throughout the United 
States. 

2d. As a necessary consequence, the suppression of the Amer- 
can slave-trade. 

3d. The ultimate elevation of the black population to an 
equality with the white, in civil and religious privileges. 



140 jay's works. 

But principles inay be sound, and objects may be good, and 
yet tlie measures adopted to enforce those principles, and to 
attain those objects, may be unlawful. Let us then inquire what 
are the measures contemplated by the Society. 

Slavery exists under the authority of the State Legislatures, 
in the several States ; and under the authority of Congress in 
the District of Columbia, and in the United States' Territories. 

The members of the Society are all represented in Congress, 
and the Constitution guarantees to them the right of petition. 
They will therefore petition Congress to exercise the power it 
possesses, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and the 
Territories. But the Society is not represented in the State 
Legislatures, and therefore petitions to them might be deemed 
officious, and would not probably lead to any advantageous result. 
The Society will therefore use the right possessed by every 
member of the community, the right of speech and of the press. 
They will address arguments to the understandings and the 
consciences of their fellow-citizens, and endeavor to convince 
them of the duty and policy of immediate emancipation. Legis- 
latures are with us but the mere creatures of the people, and 
when the people of the slave States demand the abolition of 
slavery, their Legislatures will give effect to their will by passing 
the necessary laws. 

The means by which the Society will endeavor to secure to 
the blacks an equality of civil and religious privileges, are 
frankly avowed to be the encouragement of their intellectual, 
moral, and religious improvement, and the removal of existing 
prejudices against them. To prevent any misapprehensions 
of the real design of the Society, the constitution expressly 
declares that the Society will never " in any way countenance 
the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical 
force? 

Such are the principles and designs of those who are now 
designated as abolitionists ; and never since the settlement of the 
country, has any body of citizens been subjected in a equal 
degree, to unmerited and unmeasured reproach. 

We have seen with what kind of temper colonizationists speak 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 141 

of free negroes, and we may well question, when we call to mind 
the obloquy they have heaped upon abolitionists, whether the 
latter are not in their opinion the greater nuisances. Much as 
the free negroes have suffered from the charges of the Society, 
still there have been limits to the invectives hurled against them. 
No chancellor has adjudged them to be " reckless incendiaries."* 
No counsellor, learned in the law, has charged them with being 
guilty of "a palpable nullification of that Constitution which 
they had sioom to support." f No honorable senator has 
denounced them as "fanatics, increasing injury and sealing 
oppression." j The chairman of the Executive Committee of 
the New York Colonization Society never asserted that their 
design was " beyond a doubt to foment a servile war in the 
South." § Nor did .even the New York Courier and Enquirer 
ever propose that the city authorities should inform them, that 
they must prosecute "their treasonable and beastly plans at 
their own peril ; " in other words, that they should not be pro- 
tected from mobs. || Nor, finally, has any city corporation 
accused them of holding sentiments " demoralizing in themselves, 
and little short of treason towards the government of our conn- 
try."l 

But abolitionists are neither astonished nor dismayed at the 
torrent of insult and calumny that has been poured upon them, 
as though some strange thing had happened unto them. They 
remember that Wilberforce and his companions experienced 
similar treatment, while laboring for the abolition of the slave- 

* Speech of Chancellor Wahvorth of New York. 

f Speech of D. B. Ogden, Esq., of New York. 

X Hon. Mr. Frelinghuysen, of the Senate of the United States. 

§ Commercial Advertiser, 9th June, 1834. 

|| Courier and Enquirer, 11th July, 1834. The same paper of the 27th Dec, 
1834, contains the following : — " We do say, and say in all the earnestness of 
conviction, that no meeting of abolitionists should ever be suffered to go on with 
its proceedings in the United States. Whenever these wretched disturbers of 
the public peace, and plotters of murder, rapine, and a dissolution of 
the Union, have the impudence to hold a meeting, it is the duty of the 
rational citizens, — always a vast majority in every place, — to go to that 
meeting, and there, by exercising the right of every American citizen, make 
the expression of their disapprobation and disgust loud enough, and emphatic 
enough, to render it impossible for treason to go on with its machinations. 
Let sedition be driven from its den, as often as its minions congregate." 

% Resolutions of the Corporation of the City of Utica. 
13 



142 jay's works. 

trade ; and they remember also the glorious triumphs they 
achieved, and the full though tardy justice that has been done to 
their motives. A few brief reminiscences may be both interest- 
ing and useful. 

In 1776, the British House of Commons rejected a resolu- 
tion, that the slave-trade " was contrary to the laws of God and 
the rights of man." Yet that trade is now piracy by act of 
Parliament. 

In 1788, on a bill being introduced into the House of Lords, 
to mitigate the horrors of the trade, Lord Chancellor Thurlow 
ridiculed " the sudden fit of philanthropy that had given it 
birth," and Lord Chandos predicted " the insurrection of the 
slaves, and the massacre of their masters, from the agitation of 
the subject." 

In 1789, on a motion of Mr. "Wilberforce, that the House 
would take the trade into consideration, a member pronounced the 
attempt to abolish it " hypocritical, fanatic, and methodistical," 
and contended that abolition must lead to " insurrections, mas- 
sacre and ruin." 

In 1791, Col. Tarleton, in the House of Commons, speaking 
of the proposed abolition of the slave-trade, declared that " the 
measure was fit only for the bigotry and superstition of the 
twelfth century." Lord John Eussell asserted that abolition 
was " visionary and delusive, a feeble attempt, without the power 
to serve the cause of humanity." 

Lord Sheffield could " trace in the arguments for abolition 
nothing like reason, but on the contrary, downright frenzy." 

In 1792, the abolitionists were denounced in Parliament, as 
" a junto of sectaries, sophists, enthusiasts, and fanatics." 

Li 1793, the Duke of Clarence, now William IV, in his place 
in the House of Lords, declared the abolitionists to be "fanatics 
and hypocrites," and so far violated parliamentary decorum, as 
to apply these epithets to Mr. "Wilberforce by name. Yet has 
he lived to crown the labors and fulfil the hopes of "Wilberforce, 
by giving his assent to the bill abolishing slavery throughout the 
British dominions. 

In 1804, Lord Temple declared in Parliament, that to abolish 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 143 

the slave-trade, would be " the death-warrant of every white 
inhabitant in the islands." 

Ten times did Mr. Wilberforce bring the subject of the aboli- 
tion of the traffic before Parliament, and ten times was he 
doomed to witness the failure of his efforts ; nor was this detes- 
table commerce suppressed till thirty years after the first motion 
against it had been made in the House of Commons. Now, it 
is prohibited by the whole Christian world. 

"When the abolitionists of the present day think of these facts, 
and recollect the reproaches heaped on Wilberforce and his col- 
leagues by a chancellor and dignified senators, well may they 
thank God and take courage. And who are these men, we 
would ask, whom colonizationists are honoring with epithets 
similar to those which the advocates of the slave-trade so liber- 
ally applied to the philanthropists who opposed it ? We will 
suffer an authority justly respected by the religious community 
to answer the question. 

Abbott's Religious Magazine, in an article on the mobs against 
the New York Abolitionists, says : 

" The men against whom their fury was directed, were in general 
ministers of the Gospel, and other distinguished members of Christian 
churches. The more prominent ones, were the very persons who have 
been most honored in times past, on account of their personal exer- 
tions and pecuniary contributions for every benevolent purpose. Let 
the whole land be searched, and we believe that no men will be found 
to have done so much for the promotion of temperance, purity, and 
every benevolent and religious object." 



144 jay's works. 



CHAPTER III. 



FANATICISM OP ABOLITIONISTS. 

One of the most usual terms by which abolitionists are desig 
nated by their opponents is, " the fanatics." It seems they are 
fanatics, because they believe slavery to be sinful. The grounds 
for this belief have been already stated. But is the sinfulness 
of slavery a new doctrine ? or has it been held only by weak 
and misguided men? Is Wilberforce to be denounced as a 
" wretched fanatic," because he declared, " slavery is the full 
measure of pure unsophisticated wickedness, and scorning all 
competition or comparison, it stands alone without a rival, in the 
secure, undisputed possession of its detestable preeminence ? " 

Was Jonathan Edwards a poor " misguided " man, for thus 
addressing slave-holders ? " While you hold your negroes in 
slavery, you do wrong, exceedingly wrong — you do not as you 
would that men should do to you ; you commit sin in the sight 
of God ; you daily violate the plain rights of mankind, and that 
in a higher degree than if you committed theft or robbery." 
Were Porteus, Horseley, Fox, Johnson, Burke, Jefferson, and 
Bolivar, " miserable enthusiasts ? " Yet hear their testimonies. 

" The Christian religion is opposed to slavery in its spirit and in its 
principles ; it classes men-stealers among murderers of fathers and of 
mothers, and the most profane criminals upon earth." Porteus. 

" Slavery is injustice which no consideration of policy can extenu- 
ate." Horseley. 

" Personal freedom is the right of every human being. It is a right 
of which he who deprives a fellow creature, was absolutely criminal in 
so depriving him ; and which he who withheld, was no less criminal in 
withholding." Fox. 

" No man is by nature the property of another. The rights of 
nature must be some way forfeited, before they can be justly taken 
away." Johnson. 

" Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the 
feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered 
to exist." Burke. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 145 

" The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in 
such a contest," — (a contest with insurgent slaves.) Jefferson. 

" Slavery is the infringement of all laws ; a law having a tendency 
to preserve slavery, would be the grossest sacrilege." Bolivar. 

We would take the liberty of recommending to the consider- 
ation of certain Methodist colonizationists, the following language 
of John Wesley. 

" Men-buyers are exactly on a level with men-stealers. Indeed, you 
say, I pay honestly for my goods, and am not concerned to know how 
they are come by. Nay, but you are — you are deeply concerned to 
know that they are honestly come by. Otherwise, you are a partaker 
with a thief, and are not a jot honester than him. But you know they 
are not honestly come by ; you know they are procured by means 
nothing so innocent as picking of pockets, or robbery on the highway. 
Perhaps you will say, I do not buy my negroes, I only use those left 
me by my father. So far is well, but is it enough to satisfy your con- 
science ? Had your father, have you, has any man living a right to 
use another as a slave ? It cannot be, even setting revelation aside." 

But abolitionists are fanatics, not merely because they believe 
slavery sinful, but also because they contend it ought immediate- 
ly to be abolished. In their fanaticism on this point, as well as 
on the other, they are kept in countenance by a host of divines 
and statesmen, and by the unanimous opinion of thousands and 
tens of thousands of Christians. Men of all ranks and charac- 
ters, from John Wesley or Daniel O'Connell have exhibited this 
fanaticism ; it has been borne by the republicans of France, the 
Catholics of South America, the people of England, Scotland , 
and Ireland. 

So long ago as 1774, John Wesley declared: "It cannot be 
that either war or contract can give any man such a property in 
another, as he has in his sheep and oxen. Much less is it pos- 
sible that any child of man should ever be born a slave. If, 
therefore, you have any regard to justice, (to say nothing of 
mercy, nor the revealed will of God,) render unto all their due. 
Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to every child of 
man, to every partaker of human nature." 

Jonathan Edwards was fanatic enough to assert : — " Every 
man, who cannot show that his negro hath, by his voluntary 
conduct, forfeited his liberty, is obligated immediately to manu- 
mit him." 

13* 



146 jay's works. 

One million live hundred thousand persons petitioned the Brit- 
ish Parliament for the total and immediate abolition of slavery. 
Indeed, Mr. O'Connell expressed the nearly unanimous sentiment 
of the whole nation, when he exclaimed, — "I am for speedy, 
immediate abolition. I care not what creed or color slavery 
may assume, I am for its total, its instant abolition. 

We have not yet exhausted the proofs of the alleged fanati- 
cism of abolitionists. It seems they are fanatics for wishing to 
elevate the blacks to a civil and religious equality with the 
whites. Certain colonization editors deny to abolitionists, as we 
have seen, the constitutional right of freedom of speech, the 
press, and pulpit, and even of peaceably assembling together ; 
and multitudes seem to think, that they have forfeited the pro- 
tection of the ninth commandment. Men of all ranks have 
united in charging upon them designs which they indignantly 
disclaim, and in support of which, not a particle of evidence has 
been or can be adduced. One of the designs falsely imputed to 
them, is that of bringing about an amalgamation of colors by 
intermarriages. In vain have they again and again denied any 
such design ; in vain have their writings been searched for any 
recommendation of such amalgamation. No abolitionist is 
known to have married a negro, or to have given his child to a 
negro ; yet has the charge of amalgamation been repeated, and 
repeated, till many have, no doubt, honestly believed it. 

During the very height of the New York riots, and as if to 
excite the mob to still greater atrocities, the editor of the Com- 
mercial Advertiser asserted that the abolitionists had " sought to 
degrade " the identity of their fellow citizens, as a " nation of 
white men, by reducing it to the condition of mongrels." Com. 
Adv. 11th July, 1834. 

No one in the possession of his reasoning faculties can believe 
it to be the duty of white men to select black wives ; and aboli- 
tionists have given every proof the nature of the case will ad- 
mit, that they countenance no such absurdity. 

But most true it is, that the Anti-Slavery Society avows its 
intention to labor for the civil and religious equality of the 
blacks. It has been found expedient to accuse it of aiming also 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 147 

at their social equality. He must be deeply imbued with fanat- 
icism, or rather with insanity, who contends, that because a man 
has a dark skin, he is, therefore, entitled to a reception in our 
families and a place at our tables. 

We all know white men whose characters and habits render 
them repulsive to us, and whom no consideration would induce 
us to admit into our social circles ; and can it be believed that 
abolitionists are willing to extend to negroe*s, merely on account 
of their color, courtesies and indulgences which, in innumerable 
instances, they withhold, and properly withhold, from their white 
fellow citizens ? But who pretends that, because a man is so 
disagreeable in his manners and person that we refuse to asso- 
ciate with him, therefore he ought to be denied the right of suf- 
frage, the privilege of choosing his trade and profession, the 
opportunities of acquiring knowledge, and the liberty of pursuing 
his own happiness ? Yet such is our conduct towards the free 
blacks, and it is this conduct which the -Society aims at reform- 
ing. The Society does contend, that no man ought to be punished 
for the complexion God has given him. And are not black men 
punished for the color of their skin ? Read-the laws of the slave 
States relative to free negroes ; alas ! read the laws of Ohio and 
Connecticut ; read the decision of Judge Daggett ; behold them 
deprived of the means of education, and excluded from almost 
every trade and profession ; see them compelled to wander in 
poverty and ignorance. Now, all this, abolitionists contend is 
wrong, and their opposition to this system of persecution and 
oppression is fanaticism ! Be it so ; but it is only modern fanat- 
icism, and it was not so regarded when in 1785, John Jay 
declared : 

" I wish to see all unjust and unnecessary discriminations every 

where abolished, and that the time may soon come, when all our inhab- 

; itants, of every color and denomination, shall be free and equal 

' PARTAKERS OF OUR POLITICAL LIBERTY." 

It requires no great exercise of candor to admit that the 
prejudices existing against the blacks are sinful, whenever they 
' lead us to treat those unhappy people with injustice and inhu- 
manity. They have their rights as well as ourselves. They 



148 jay's works. 

have no right to associate with us against our will, but they have 
a right to acquire property by lawful industry ; they have a 
right to participate in the blessings of education and political 
liberty. "When, therefore, our prejudices lead us to keep the 
.blacks in poverty, by restricting their industry,* to keep thern 
in ignorance, by excluding them from our seminaries, and pre- 
venting them from having seminaries of their own ; to keep 
them in a state of vassalage by denying them any choice in their 
rulers ; our prejudices are so far sinful, and so far only does the 
Anti-Slavery Society aim at removing them. 



CHAPTER IV. 



INCENDIARISM AND TREASON OP ABOLITIONISTS. 

It is not enough that abolitionists should be represented as 
fanatics ; it has been deemed expedient to hold them up to the 
community as incendiaries and traitors. The chairman of the 
Executive Committee of the New York Colonization Society, 
thus speaks of the Anti-Slavery Society, in his paper of the 9th 
June, 1834: 

" The design of this Society is, beyond a doubt, to foment a servile 
war in the South ; they have been heard to say, blood must be shed, 
and the sooner the better ; this Society owes its existence not to the 
love of liberty, or any particular affection for the slaves, but to cruel 
and bitter hatred, and malignity." 

In an earlier paper, he inserted an article accusing abolition- 
ists of seeking to use the pulpits " for the base purpose of encour- 
aging scenes of bloodshed." 

Here we find the most atrocious designs imputed to men well 
known in the community for active benevolence and private 

* As one instance among the innumerable restrictions on the industry of 
these people, we may mention that no free black, however moral and intelli- 
gent, can obtain a license in the city of New York to drive a cart ! 






AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 14:9 

worth; and yet not a scintilla of evidence is offered in support 
of the extraordinary fact, that such men should harbor such 
designs. In this case the accused can of course offer only nega- 
tive jn-oof of their innocence. That proof is to be found, first, 
in their individual characters ; secondly, in the fact that many 
of the abolitionists are emphatically peace men, that is, they hold 
the Quaker doctrine of the unlawfulness of war, and maintain 
that it would be sinful in the slaves to attempt effecting their 
freedom by force of arms ; * thirdly, in the fundamental principle 
of the Society that they will " never in any way countenance 
the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical 
force;" and, fourthly, in the fact that abolitionists as such, have 
in no instance recommended or committed an act of unlawful 
violence. 

But by declaiming against slavery, abolitionists are exciting 
odium against slave-holders. If he who labors to render any 
particular sin, and those who are guilty of it odious, is of course 
a " reckless incendiary," few are more justly and honorably 
entitled to this epithet, than the excellent Chancellor of New 
York. Few have shown more intrepidity in denouncing the 
venders of ardent spirits than this gentleman ; and abolitionists 
in their warfare against slavery, may well take a lesson from the 
example he has set them of an honest and fearless discharge of 
duty. Had the President of the New York Temperance Society 
and his associates exercised the same tenderness and gentleness 
towards drunkards and venders, that he now shows towards 
slave-holders, Temperance Societies would have checked the 
progress of drunkenness as little as colonization promises to do 
that of slavery. 

TnoMAS Jefferson was not denounced as a reckless incen- 
diary, when in the midst of a slave population, he declared that 
;the Almighty had no attribute that could take side with the 
masters in a contest with their slaves ; nor did John Jay forfeit 
,the confidence of his countrymen, when during the Revolution- 
ary war, he asserted, " till America comes into this measure, 

I *This sentiment is held and avowed by the much calumniated Mr. Gar- 
rison. 



150 jay's works. 

(abolition of slavery) her prayers to heaven for liberty will be 
impious ; " nor when addressing the Legislature of New York, 
then a slave State, he told them that persons "free by the laws 
of God, are held in slavery by the laws of man." 

Nor were Feanklin and his associates regarded as incendi- 
aries for uniting in 1787, "to extend the blessings of freedom 
to every part of our race," or for refusing to permit slave-holders 
to participate with them in this glorious effort. 

It was not sufficient to ridicule abolitionists as fanatics, or to 
stigmatize them as incendiaries ; they must be branded as trai- 
tors and nullifiers. On the 9th of October, 1833, a few days 
after a mob had assembled to deprive American citizens of one of 
their dearest constitutional rights, that of peaceably expressing 
their opinions, a numerous colonization meeting was convened 
in New York for the purpose of taking advantage of the recent 
excitement to raise the sum of $20,000. Gentlemen of high 
rank and influence addressed the meeting. Not a word of dis- 
approbation of the late outrage escaped them ; on the contrary, 
the violence offered to the abolitionists seemed to be extenuated, 
if not justified, by the grievous charges now brought against 
them. 

The Hon. Mr. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, justly distin- 
guished for his piety, his talents, and his station as- a Senator of 
the United States, addressed the meeting. " In the course of 
his address," says the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, 10th of 
October, " he dwelt with emphasis, and just discrimination upon 
the proceedings of both cis and trans- Atlantic abolitionists, who 
are seeking to destroy our happy Union." 

Chancellor Walworth, one of the most estimable citizens, and 
the highest judicial officer of the State of New York, alluding to 
the emancipation to be effected by colonization, remarked : 

" The emancipation, however, to which this resolution directs your 
attention, is not that unconstitutional and dangerous emancipation con- 
templated by a few visionary enthusiasts, and a still fewer reckless 
incendiaries among us, which cannot be effected without violating the 
rights of property secured by that constitution which we have sworn to 
support — that emancipation which icould arm one part of the Union 
against another, and light up the flame of civil war in this now happy 
land." N. Y. Journal of Commerce. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 151 

David B. Ogden, Esq., a gentleman whose legal eminence 
and whose purity of character justly give to his opinions peculiar 
weight, used the following language : 

" I avail myself of this opportunity, to enter my solemn protest 
against the attempts which are making by a few fanatics, who, with- 
out looking to the fearful consequences involved in such an issue, are 
advocating the immediate emancipation of slaves, in the Southern 
District. As citizens of the United States, we have no right to interfere 
with the claims of our Southern brethren to the property of their 
slaves. The Constitution of the United States recognizes their right to 
it, and they have not only a sure and undeniable right to that property, 
but they are entitled to the full protection of the constituted authorities, 
in enforcing the enjoyment of it. Let us not talk any more of nullifica- 
tion ; the doctrine of immediate emancipation is a direct and palpable 
nullification of that Constitution tee have sioorn to support." N. Y. 
Journal of Commerce. 

We might have selected many similar charges from other 
sources, but we have taken these on account of the high character 
of the accusers, and because the authors are all of the legal pro- 
fession, and, of course, aware of the importance of precision in 
all charges of a criminal nature. Not one of these gentlemen 
sitting as a criminal judge, would permit the merest vagabond to 
be put on his defence on a vague charge of stealing, but would 
quash any indictment that did not specify the time and place 
of the offence, and the property alleged to be stolen ; yet they 
did not scruple to hold up their fellow-citizens and fellow Chris- 
tians to the indignation of the public, on charges destitute of all 
specification, and unsupported by a particle of testimony. 

Abolitionists are here accused of seeking to destroy our happy 
Union ; of contemplating a violation of property, secured by the 
Constitution they had sworn to support ; of pursuing measures 
which would lead to a civil Avar ; and of being guilty of direct 
land palpable nullification. When — where — how were these 
; crimes attempted ? What proof is offered ? Nothing, absolutely 
, nothing, is offered but naked assertion. Is this equitable ? Is 
|it doing to others as these gentlemen would wish others to do to 
them ? 

But it is not enough that abolitionists should be denounced at 
!home ; they must also be defamed abroad. Mr. Gurley, Secre- 
tary of the American Colonization Society, writes a letter (1833) 



152 jay's works. 

to Henry Ibbotson, £sq., England, and to give it greater weight, 
dates it, " Office of the Colonization Society, Washington." In 
this letter, he undertakes to enlighten his foreign correspondent 
on some of the "fundamental errors " of the abolitionists, and 
ranks among them the opinion, " that, in present circumstances, 
slavery ought to be abolished, by means not acting solely through, 
but, in a great degree against, and in defiance of the will of the 
South" Not a tittle of evidence is given, that such an opinion 
is held by a single individual in the United States. 

Mr. Jeremiah Hubbard, clerk of the Yearly Meeting of 
Friends, in North Carolina, in a letter to a friend in England, 
(Afr. Rep., X, p. 37,) declares that " the primary object " of the 
abolitionists " appears to be, that of producing such a revolution 
in public sentiment as to cause the national legislation to bear 
directly upon the slave-holders, and to compel them to emancipate 
their slaves." 

Now, to all these charges, and to each and every one of 
them, the members of the Anti-Slavery Society plead NOT 
guilty, and desire to be tried by God and their country. But, 
alas, no trial is vouchsafed to them : judgment has already been 
given, and execution awarded against them, without trial and 
without evidence, solely on the finding of a voluntary and 
irresponsible inquest. All they can now do, is to ask for a 
reversal of the judgment as false and illegal, cruel and op- 
pressive. 

It is, of course, difficult to disprove charges, where the counts 
of the indictment are utterly void of certainty, and where, from 
the nature of the case, none but negative testimony can be 
offered by the accused. We have a right to presume that the 
treason and nullification charged on abolitionists, have reference 
to their efforts to procure the abolition of slavery in the United 
States. Now slavery exists under the authority of Congress, 
and also under the authority of State Legislatures. We will 
proceed in the first place to exhibit some facts relative to slavery 
in the former instance, and inquire how far the conduct of aboli- 
tionists in respect to it is treasonable and unconstitutional ; and 
we will then make the same inquiry as to their conduct in regard 
to slavery in the several States. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 153 



CHAPTER V. 



SLAVERY UNDER THE THE AUTHORITY OF CONGRESS. 

At the last census, there were in the territories of Arkansas, 
Florida, and the District of Columbia, twenty-six thousand one 
hundred and thirty-eight slaves. "We will confine our remarks 
at present to slavery as it is exhibited at the seat of the federal 
government, and in a portion of territory over which the Consti- 
tution of the United States has given to Congress " exclusive 
jurisdiction." In this District of ten miles square, there are six 
thousand slaves ; and the laws under which they are held in 
bondage, are among the most cruel and wicked of all the slave 
laws in the United States. This District, moreover, placed as 
it is under the immediate and absolute control of the national 
government, is the great slave mart of the North American 
continent. 

In 1829, Mr. Miner, a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, from Pennsylvania, introduced a resolution for the gradual 
abolition of slavery in the District. In his speech in support of 
this resolution, many appalling facts were disclosed. It appeared 
that in the last five years, seven hundred and forty-two colored 
persons had been committed to the public prison of the city of 
Washington. And were these persons accused or convicted of 
crime ? Not one. Four hundred and fifty-two were lodged 
in the United States prison by slave-traders, lor safe-keeping 
prior to exportation. The residue were imprisoned" on suspicion, 
j real or affected, of being fugitive slaves ; and if not claimed as 
I such, were by authority of Congress, to be sold as slaves for 
; life, to raise money to pay their jail fees ! 
. Such are the facts in regard to the prison in the Capi- 
• tal of our confederate Republic ; and let it be recollected 
that there are other prisons besides this in the District of 
Columbia. 

u 



154 jay's works. 

Of the practical operation of a system sanctioned by the laws 
of Congress, takes the following sample : 

" Visiting the prison," says Mr. Miner, " and passing through the 
avenues that lead to the cells, I was struck with the appearance of a 
woman, having three or four children with her, one at the breast. 
She presented such an aspect of woe, that I could not help incpiiring 
her story. It was simply this : she was a slave, but had married a man 
who was free. By him she had eight or nine children. Moved by 
natural affection, the father labored to support the children ; but as 
they attained an age to be valuable in the market, perhaps ten or 
twelve, the master sold them. One after another was taken away and 
sold to the slave-dealers. She had now come to an age to be no longer 
profitable as a breeder, and her master had separated her from her 
husband and all the associations of life, and sent her and her children 
to your prison for sale." 

The law of the District, virtually the law of Congress, by 
which any colored person, without the allegation of a crime, 
may be seized and thrown into a cell, and unless he can there 
prove his freedom, or is claimed by another, is sold for life as a 
slave to pay his jail fees, is for unblushing injustice and atrocity 
utterly unrivalled by any enactment of the despots of the old 
world. Mr. Miner states, that in 182G-7 no less than five 
persons were thus sold into perpetual bondage, for jail fees. In 
one case, the United States Marshal lost his fees. Hear 
Mr. Miner. 

" In August, 1821, a black man was taken up and imprisoned as a 
runaway. He was kept confined until October, 1822, — four hundred 
and five days. In this time, vermin, disease, and misery had deprived 
him of the use of his limbs. He was rendered a cripple for life, and 
finally discharged, as no one would buy him. Turned out upon the 
world a miserable pauper, disabled by our means from gaining sub- 
sistence, he is sometimes supported from the Poor-house, sometimes 
receives alms in your streets." 

Mr. Miner thus speaks of the American slave-trade, as 
carried on in the District : 

" The slave-trade, as it exists and is carried on here, is marked by 
instances of injustice and cruelty scarcely exceeded on the coast of 
Africa. It is a mistake to suppose it is a mere purchase and sale of 
acknowledged slaves. The District is full of complaints on the subject, I 
and the evil is increasing. So long ago as 1802, the extent and cruelty i 
of the traffic, produced from a grand jury, at Alexandria, a present- I 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 155 

merit so clear, so strong, and so feelingly drawn, that I shall make no 
apology for reading it to the House." 

Mr. Miner then read the following : 

"January Term, 1802. 
" We the grand jury for the body of the County of Alexandria, in 
the District of Columbia, present as a grievance the practice of persons 
coming from distant parts of the United States into this District, for 
the purpose of purchasing slaves, where they exhibit to our view a 
scene of wretchedness and human degradation, disgraceful to our char- 
acters as citizens of a free government. True it is that these dealers, 
in the persons of our fellow-men, collect within this District from vari- 
ous parts, numbers of those victims of slavery, and lodge them in some 
place of confinement until they have completed their numbers. They 
are then turned out in our streets and exposed to view, loaded with 
chains as though they had committed some heinous offence against our 
laws. We consider it a grievance that citizens from distant parts of 
the United States should be permitted to come within this District, and 
pursue a traffic fraught with so much misery to a class of beings enti- 
tled to our protection by the laws of justice and humanity ; and that 
the interposition of civil authority cannot be had to prevent parents 
being wrested from their offspring, and children from their parents, 
without respect to the ties of nature. We consider these grievances 
demanding legislative redress," — that is, redress by Congress. 

As illustrative of the horrors and iniquities of the traffic, Mr. 
Miner informed the House of an incident that had occurred 
during the previous session of Congress. A free colored man 
had married a slave ; with the avails of his industry, he had, in 
the course of some years, purchased the freedom of his wife 
and children. He left home on business, and on his return 
found his house tenantless. His wife and children were missing. 
It was soon ascertained that they had been kidnapped by slave- 
dealers, and confined in a private slave-prison, in Alexandria ; 
from whence they had afterwards been sent to a distant market, 
and were forever lost to the husband and the father. 

" There is a man now in this District," continued Mr. Miner, " who 
was in the hands of the slave-dealers, about to be sent off to the South, 
when he laid his hand on a block, and with an axe severed it from his 
arm. Can the slave-trade on the coast of Africa be more horrible, 
more dreaded, or more prolific of scenes of misery ? To me all this 
is dreadful, and I think it should not be tolerated here." 

In 1828, a petition for the suppression of this trade, and for 
the gradual abolition of slavery, and signed by more than one 



15G jay's works. 

thousand of the inhabitants of the District, was presented to 
Congress. From this document we extract the following : 

" While the laws of the United States denounce the foreign slave- 
trade as piracy, and punish with death those who are found engaged in 
its perpetration, there exists in this District, the seat of the national 
government, a domestic slave-trade scarcely less disgraceful in 
its character, and even more demoralizing in its influence. These 
people are without their consent torn from their homes ; husband and 
wife are frequently separated and sold into distant parts ; children are 
taken from their parents without regard to the ties of nature, and the 
most endearing bonds of affection are broken forever. 

" Nor is this traffic confined to those who are legally slaves for life. 
Some who are entitled to freedom, and many who have a limited time 
to serve, are sold into unconditional slavery, and owing to the defec- 
tiveness of our laws, they are generally carried out of the District 
before the necessary steps can be taken for their release. 

" We behold these scenes continually taking place among us, and 
lament our inability to prevent them. The people of this District have 
within themselves no means of legislative redress, and we therefore 
appeal to your honorable body, as the ONLY ONE vested by the 
American Constitution with power to relieve us." 

We will now exhibit the flourishing condition of the slave- 
trade under the protection of Congress in 1834. The fol- 
lowing advertisements are all taken from the same sheet, printed 
a few months since at the Capital of the American Republic : 

" Cash for Two Hundred Negroes. 

" We will give cash for two hundred likely young negroes of both 
sexes, families included. Persons wishing to dispose of their slaves, 
will do well to give us a call, as we will give higher prices in cash than 
any other purchasers who are now or may hereafter come into this 
market. All communications will meet attention. We can at all 
times be found at our residence on Seventh street, immediately south 
of the Centre Market-house, Washington, D. C. 

" September 13, 1834. Joseph W. Neal & Co." 

" Cash for Four Hundred Negroes, 

Including both sexes, from twelve to twenty-five years of age. Per- 
sons having likely servants to dispose of, will find it to their interest to 
give us a call, as we will give higher prices in cash than any other pur- 
chaser who is now or may hereafter come into this market. 

" Franklin, Armfield & Co. 
" Alexandria, September 1st, 1834." 



american anti-slaver? society. 157 

" Cash for One Hundred Negroes, 

Including both sexes, from twelve to twenty-five years of age. Persons 
having likely servants to dispose of, will find it to their interest to give us 
a call, as we will give higher prices in cash than any other purchaser 
who is now in this city. 

" We can at all times be found at Isaac Beer's tavern, a few doors 
below Lloyd's tavern, opposite Centre Market, Washington city. All 
communications promptly attended to. 

" September 1st, 1834. Birch & Jones." 

Thus we find cash offered for seven hundred slaves at one 
time, in the District of Columbia. Does any one inquire how 
these slaves are to be disposed of? We call his attention to the 
following advertisement in the same paper : 

" Alexandria and New Orleans Packets. 

" Brig Tribune, Captain Smith, and Brig Uncas, Captain Boush, 
will resume their regular trips on the 20th of October : one of which 
will leave this port every thirty days throughout the shipping season. 
They are vessels of the first class, commanded by experienced officers, 
and will at all times go up the Mississippi by steam, and every exertion 
used to promote the interests of shippers and comfort of passengers. 
Apply to the Captains on board, or to 

" Franklin & Armfield. 

" Alexandria, September 1st." 

Most grievously disappointed and astonished would any North- 
ern gentleman be, who had taken passage in one of these Alex- 
andria and New Orleans packets, on finding himself on board a 
SLAVER. 

From a letter of the 23d of January, 1834, by the Rev. Mr. 
Leavitt, and published in New York, it appears that he visited 
the slave-factory of Franklin & Armfield, at Alexandria, and 
was " informed by one of the principals, that the number of 
slaves carried from the District last year was about one thou- 
sand, but it would be much greater this year. He expected 
their house alone would ship at least eleven or twelve hundred. 
They had two vessels of their own constantly employed in car- 
rying slaves to New Orleans." One of the vessels being in 
port, Mr. Leavitt went on board of her. 

" Her name is the Tribune. The Captain very obligingly took us 
to all parts of the vessel. The hold is appropriated to the slaves, and 

14* 



158 jay's works. 

is divided into two apartments. The after-bold will carry about eighty 
women, and the other about one hundred men. On either side were 
two platforms running the whole length ; one raised a few inches, and 
the other half way up to the deck. They were about five or six feet 
deep. On these the slaves lie, as close as they can stow away." 

In 1831, the Brig Comet, a slaver, belonging to this very 
house, and which had sailed from Alexandria with a cargo of 
one hundred and sixty slaves, was wrecked on Abaco, one of the 
Bahamas. 

But this vile commerce is carried on by land, as well as by 
water. Slave-coffles are formed at the prisons in the District, 
and thence set off on their dreary journey into the interior, liter- 
ally in chains. A gentleman thus describes a coffle he met on 
the road in Kentucky : 

" I discovered about forty black men all chained together in the fol- 
lowing manner : — each of them was hand-cuffed, and they were 
arranged in rank and file. A chain, perhaps forty feet long, was 
stretched between the two ranks, to which short chains were joined, 
which connected with the hand-cuffs. Behind them were, I suppose, 
thirty women in double rank ; the couples tied hand to hand." 

These conies pass the very Capitol in which are assembled 
the Legislators by whom they are authorized, and over whose 
heads is floating the broad banner of the Republic, too justly, 
alas ! in such instances, described by an English satirist as 

" The fustian flag that proudly waves, 
In splendid mockery o'er a land of slaves." 

But the tale of iniquity and infamy is not yet ended. In the 
Capital of our confederated Republic, and with the sanction of 
the Congress of the United States of America, men are li- 
censed FOR FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS TO DEAL IN HUMAN 
FLESH ! 

. And now we ask, Ought these things so to be ? If not, who 
can remedy them ? There is no power on earth but Congress. 
No State Legislature can interfere with the District of Colum- 
bia, or suppress the accursed traffic of which it is the seat. But 
who shall rouse Congress to action ? Do we wait for the inter- 
position of slave-holders ? It is they who foster and encourage 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 159 

the trade. Do we appeal to the benevolence of the Colonization 
Society ? Alas, all then* sympathy is expended on the victims 
of the African commerce ; their constitution authorizes no inter- 
ference with the American traffic. We have seen how far their 
first President himself embarked in this trade. No less than 
four Vice Presidents of the Society are at this moment, Feb- 
ruary, 1835, members of Congress, and three of them Senators ; 
but not a word has fallen from their lips, relative to slavery, or 
the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. We are wrong ; 
one of them has spoken. 

Mr. Charles Fenton Mercer, one of the most devoted 
officers of the Society, during the present session of Congress 
voted to lay on the table a petition presented to the House of 
Representatives for the abolition of slavery in the District, thus 
endeavoring to stifle all inquiry into those outrages upon human 
rights and human happiness which are perpetrated under the 
authority of the national Legislature. Yet this very gentleman 
has distinguished himself by his zeal against the African slave- 
trade. 

The American Anti-Slavery Society avows its intention to 
endeavor to influence Congress to refuse any longer to authorize 
these abominations. And is it for this avowal that its members 
are branded as traitors and nullifiers ? If so, then they appeal 
for their justification to the Constitution of the United States. 

By the 8th Section of the 1st Article of that instrument Con- 
gress is authorized to " exercise exclusive legislation in all cases 
whatsoever" over the District of Columbia ; and by the first 
article of the amendments, Congress is restrained from making 
any law " abridging the freedom of sj>eech or the press, or the 
right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the 
government for a i*edress of grievances." Hence abolitionists 
have believed that Congress possess the right to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia, and that they themselves are 
authorized to petition that it may be abolished. Such a belief 
may, perhaps, indicate a " wild fanaticism ; " it seems, however, 
to be a fanaticism shared by the Legislatures of Pennsylvania 
and New York, and even by the House of Representatives. 



160 jay's works. 

In 1828, the Pennsylvania Legislature, by an almost unani- 
mous vote : 

" Resolved, That the Senators of this State in the Senate of the 
United States, are hereby requested to pi-ocure, if practicable, the 
passage of a law to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, in such 
a manner as they may consider consistent with the rights of individuals 
and the Constitution of the United States." 

On the 9th of January, 1829, the House of Representatives 

" Resolved, That the Committee of the District of Columbia be 
instructed to inquire into the expediency, (not the right,) of providing 
by law for the gradual abobtion of slavery in the District, in such man- 
ner that no individual shall be injured thereby." 

On the 28th of January, 1829, a Committee of the New York 
Assembly reported to the House : 

" Your Committee cannot but view with astonishment that in the 
Capital of this free and enlightened country, laws should exist, by 
which the free citizens of a State are liable, without trial, and even 
without the imputation of a crime, to be seized while prosecuting their 
lawful business, immured in prison, and though free, unless claimed as 
a slave, to be sold as such for the payment of jail fees." 

The Committee recommended the following resolution, which 
was adopted by the Assembly : 

" Resolved, (if the Senate concur herein) That the Senators of this 
State, in the Congress of the United States, be and are hereby instruct- 
ed, and the Representatives of this State are requested to make every 
possible exertion, to effect the passage of a law for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia." 

And now again do we ask, are abolitionists fanatics and inceu- 
diaries, and milliners, and traitors, and all that is foolish, and all 
that is wicked, because they wish Congress to suppress slavery 
and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia? It cannot 
be that Messrs. Frelinghuysen, Walworth, Ogden, and other 
•upright and intelligent colonizationists have founded their griev- 
ous charges against abolitionists on this ground. Let us then 
see how far abolitionists have merited these charges, for their 
endeavors to abolish slavery existing under the authority of the 
several States. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 1G1 



CHAPTER VI. 

SLAVERY UNDER STATE AUTHORITY. 

We have seen that the charges against the abolitionists 
are vague and without specifications. Friend Hubbard and Mr. 
Gurley, however, give their accusations something of a tangible 
shape. The one asserts that abolitionists are laboring to abolish 
slavery by causing the national legislation to bear directly on the 
slave-holders, and compel them to emancipate their slaves : the 
other insists that it is one of their fundamental principles, that 
slavery is to be abolished in a great degree against and in defi- 
ance of the will of the South. The obvious and only meaning 
of these assertions is, that it is the wish and object of the aboli- 
tionists to induce Congress to abolish slavery in the States. 
One would think that this charge, if true, might be easily proved : 
some petition, some recommendation might be quoted; but so 
far from having ever seen any proof of this charge, we have 
never seen even an attempt to prove it. 

Perhaps the testimony on this point of a Vice President of 
the American Colonization Society, and one who is equally dis- 
tinguished by his moral worth and his zeal in the cause of 
colonization, will be listened to with respect by many of his 
brethren. Gerritt Smith, Esq., of New York, in a speech at the 
Anniversary Meeting of the Society, 20th of January, 1834, 
speaking of the Anti-Slavery Society, remarked : 

" I believe that Society to be as honest as our own — as benevolent 
and patriotic as our own. Its members love their fellow-men, and love 
their country, and love the union of the States, as sincerely and as 
strongly as we do ; and much as is said to the contrary on this point, I 
have never seen a particle of evidence, that the Anti-Slavery Society 
meditates any interference with the provisions of the laws of the slave 
States on the subject of slavery. It alleges, and I have no doubt, sin- 
cerely, that it is by moral influence alone, and mainly by the changes 
wrought by the application of truth to the conscience, that it seeks to 
compass its object." 

It seems Mr. Smith has never seen a particle of evidence in 
support of the charge that abolitionists meditate interference 



162 jay's works. 

with the laws of the slave States. They who make the charge, 
offer not a particle of evidence in its behalf. We will now 
offer a mass of evidence in proof of its utter falsity. 

Our first witness is one whose competency and credibility will 
not be questioned ; and who, like Mr. Smith, is a Vice President 
of the Colonization Society. The following is extracted from a 
letter to John Bolton, Esq., of Savannah, written for publica- 
tion by the Hon. Daniel Webster, and dated 17th May, 1833 : 

"In my opinion, the domestic slavery of the Southern States is a 
subject within the exclusive control of the States themselves ; and this, 
I am sure, is the opinion of the whole North. Congress has no authority 
to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them 
in any of the States. This was so resolved in the House of Represen- 
tatives in 1790, on the report of a committee consisting almost entirely 
of Northern members ; and I do not know an instance of the expression 
of a different opinion in either House of Congress since. I cannot say 
that particular individuals might not possibly be found, who suppose 
that Congress may possess some power over the subject, but I do not 
know any such persons, and if there be any, I am sure they are very 
few. The servitude of so great a portion of the population of the South 
is undoubtedly regarded at the North as a great evil, moral and politi- 
cal, and the discussions upon it which have recently taken place in the 
Legislatures of several of the slave-holding States, have been read with 
very deep interest. But it is regarded, nevertheless, as an evil, the 
remedy for which lies with those Legislatures themselves, to be provided 
and applied according to their own sense of policy and duty; The im- 

S itations which you say, and say truly, are constantly made against the 
orth, are, in my opinion, entirely destitute of any just foundation." 

Thus we find that Mr. Webster, living in Boston, the seat of 
the New England Anti-Slavery Society, a fellow-townsman of 
Garrison's, and surrounded by abolitionists, knows nothing of 
the nullifiers denounced by Mr. Ogden, nothing of the men who 
Mr. Gurley says are for freeing the slaves in defiance of the will 
of the South, nothing of those who the North Carolina Quaker 
tells us, are for bringing the " national legislation " to bear upon 
emancipation. 

And has Daniel Webster, a sworn sentinel on the ramparts 
of the Constitution, been sleeping at his post, and is it to more 
faithful and more intelligent watchmen, that we owe the discov- 
ery of the meditated treason ? 

Mr. Webster's letter contains, as far as it goes, the toliti- 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 163 

Cal creed of the abolitionists, and we niay challenge the 
whole Colonization Society to name a single abolitionist who 
does not most heartily assent to its doctrines. The New York 
Emancipator transferred the letter to its columns, remarking : 

" Mr. Webster's opinion on the subject of slavery in the States of 
this Union, so far as expressed, is just the same as has been more 
than once avowed in every Anti-Slavery paper in the country — that 
it is a subject within the exclusive control of the States themselves." 
Emancipator, Gth July, 1833. 

Not only has Mr. Garrison declared his readiness to sign his 
name to every sentiment expi-essed in Mr. Webster's letter, but 
he has used in the Liberator the following language : 

" Abolitionists as clearly understand, and as sacredly regard the 
constitutional powers of Congress, as do their traducers ; and they 
know, and have again and again asserted, that Congress has no more 
rightful authority to sit in judgment upon Southern slavery than it has to 
legislate for the abolition of slavery in the French colonies." 

We will now select a few from the many official declarations 
of abolitionists on this subject. 

" The national compact was so framed as to guarantee the legal pos- 
session of slaves ; and physical interference would be a violation of 
Christian principles." 1st Rep. of New England Anti-Slavery Society, 

" We do not aim at any interference with the constitutional rights 
of the slave-holding States ; for Congress, as is well understood, has no 
power to abolish slavery in the several States." Address of the N. Y. 
city Anti-Slavery Society, p. 5. 

" We freely and unanimously recognize the sovereignty of each 
State, to legislate exclusively on the subject of slavery which is tolerated 
within its limits ; we consider that Congress has no right to interfere 

l with any of the slave States in relation to this subject." Declaration of 
Anti-Slavery Convention at Philadelphia, ith of December, 1833. 
" While it admits that each State in which slavery exists has by the 

; Constitution of the United States exclusive right to legislate in regard 
to its abolition, it shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by argu- 

I ments addressed to their understandings and consciences, that slave- 

' holding is a heinous sin in the sight of God." Constitution of American 
Anti-Slavery Society. 

In December, 1833, the managers of the New York city 
Anti-Slavery Society printed and circulated a petition to Con- 



164 jay's works. 

gress, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
It commenced as follows : 

" To the Honorable, the House of Representatives. 

" Your petitioners, inhabitants of the city of New York, beg leave 
to represent to your Honorable Body, that whatever views they may 
entertain of the evils of slavery as it exists in certain States of the 
Federal Union, they are fully aware that these evils are beyond the 
constitutional control of the federal government ; and so far from solicit- 
ing your interposition for their removal, they would deprecate the 
interference of Congress on this subject, as a violation of the national 
compact." 

The petition then proceeds to assert the constitutional power 
of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, and asks for its 
exercise. 

And now we ask, is there anything in the extracts we have 
given, to justify, excuse, or palliate the heavy accusations made 
against abolitionists? Surely ti must now be conceded that 
however unconstitutional may be the emancipation contemplated 
by abolitionists, it is not to be effected by Congress. We lament 
that Chancellor Walworth did not condescend to explain how 
and why it was unconstitutional. He is accustomed to assign 
reasons for his decisions, and it may fairly be doubted whether, 
in withholding the reasons for the judgment he has pronounced 
against abolitionists, he has administered equity. He has ad- 
judged that the emancipation contemplated by abolitionists 
would " violate the rights of property ; " but in what way, does 
not appear. As physical force is disclaimed, and congressional 
interference deprecated, the alleged violation of property must 
arise from the appeals made to the holders to surrender it. But 
surely the President of the New York Temperance Society does 
not regard property in human flesh and blood so much more 
sacred than property in rum, that while he is laboring to induce 
the owners of the latter, throughout the United States, to part 
with their property, he looks upon every man who tells his 
fellow-citizens that it is their duty to manumit their slaves, as 
violating the rights of property ! The venders of ardent spirits 
in New Orleans and elsewhere, have as valid and constitutional 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 1G5 

a title to their liquors as they have to their slaAes. Now hear 
what Mr. Frelinghuysen says of a traffic expressly sanctioned 
by the laws of every State in the Union : 

" It is mere tampering with temptation to come short of positive, 
decided, and uncompromising opposition. We must not only resist, 
we must drive it. To stand on the defensive merely, is to aid in its 
triumph." Wi Rep. Am. Temp. Soc, p. 51. 

Yet they who by arguments are resisting, or driving the 
traffic in the souls and bodies of men, are accused of " seeking 
to destroy our happy Union ! " 

The State Legislatures have as much right to authorize 
lotteries, as they have to authorize slavery, yet the Pennsylva- 
nia Society for abolishing lotteries is established for the avowed 
purpose of abolishing, by moral influence, lotteries in other 
States, for there are none in its own. No objection is made to 
the constitutionality of that Society, yet epithets seem to be 
wanting to express the abhorrence felt for those who are aim- 
ing by the same means to rescue millions from a bondage 
destructive to their happiness in this world, and in that which is 
to come ! 

In the remarks we have made on the language used by Chan 
cellor Walworth and his two associates, no unkind feelings have 
mingled. Not a suspicion of the goodness of their motives has 
crossed our mind ; we admire them for their talents, and esteem 
them for their virtues ; and sincerely do we regret, that men 
who possess the power of doing so much good, should ever, 
through want of information, so grievously misapply it. 

And now it may be asked, if abolitionists intend to use only 
moral means, what good can they effect by using those means at 
the North, where slavery does not exist ? But although slavery 
I does not exist at the North, it is excused and justified at the 
i North; and Southern Christians are countenanced in keeping 
| their fellow-men in bondage and in ignorance, by their Northern 
' brethren. We have already seen the baneful influence of the 
; Colonization Society on the treatment of the free negroes at the 
. North ; the Black Act of Connecticut is still in force, and Judge 
i Daggett's decision remains unreversed. Slavery is in full vigor 
15 



166 jay's works. 

under the authority of Congress, and sanctioned by a majority 
consisting of Northern members ; and our whole country is dis- 
graced, and humanity and religion outraged by an extensive and 
abominable slave-trade, conducted under the same sanction. If, 
therefore, it could be foreseen, that no slave in any of the States 
would ever be liberated, through the influence of Northern Anti- 
Slavery Societies, there would still remain great and glorious 
objects to stimulate their zeal, to employ all their energies, and 
abundantly to reward all their labors. But neither their labors 
nor rewards will be confined to the North. The consciences of 
Southern Christians, so long lulled by the opiate of colonization, 
are awakening to duty. Southern divines are beginning to 
acknowledge the sinfulness of slavery, and recent slave-holders 
are now proclaiming the safety and duty of immediate emanci- 
pation. 

While Northern colonizationists are sounding the tocsin, and 
girding on their armor, and rushing to the battle, to protect the 
rights of their Southern brethren, those very brethren are begin- 
ning to listen to the friendly admonitions of abolitionists, and 
are inquiring what they must do to escape the mighty perils to 
which they are exposed. On the 19th of March, a convention 
of gentlemen from different parts of Kentucky assembled at 
Danville, and amid a slave population of 165,000, organized 
" The Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society, Auxiliary to the 
American Anti-Slavery Society ; and appointed a delegate to 
attend the anniversary of the parent Institution at New York ! 

While the professors of many of our Northern colleges are 
laboring with trembling solicitude to stifle all discussion respect- 
ing slavery among their pupils, James M. Buchanan, a profes- 
sor of Centre College, has had the moral courage to accept the 
station of President of the Kentucky Society. Indeed, the 
whole nation has been roused from its lethargy, and in almost 
every circle and neighborhood, the subject of abolition is attract- 
ing attention ; the violence and persecution experienced by 
abolitionists, instead of suppressing, has promoted discussion ; 
and they have reason to hope, that slavery will ultimately be 
abolished, by the voluntary action of the South, in compliance 
with the dictates of policy and of duty. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 1G7 



CHAPTER VII. 



SAFETY OF IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. 

Although we may have succeeded in proving that the eman- 
cipation contemplated by abolitionists is not " unconstitutional," 
yet many may conscientiously doubt whether it would be safe 
and wise. 

A few yeai's only have elapsed since the use of ardent spirits 
was universally countenanced by all classes of the community ; 
and when the few who contended that their use was sinful, and 
ought to be immediately abandoned, were deemed no less vision- 
ary and fanatical than those are now who hold the same doctrine 
in regard to slavery. 

The whole Colonization Society, with scarcely a solitary 
exception,* denounce immediate emancipation as dangerous, or 
rather as utterly ruinous, to the whites. Their objections were 
thus briefly summed up by the Rev. Dr. Hawkes, in his speech 
at a colonization meeting in New York : 

" But if the plan of colonization be abandoned, what remains ? Are 
the slaves fitted for freedom ? No ; and if they are let loose at once, 
they must of necessity, to procure a living, either beg or steal, or de- 
stroy and displace the whites." New York Com. Adv., 10th Oct., 1833. 

Here we have broad, unqualified assertions, without a particle 
of proof. We find it taken for granted, that if the slaves are 
at once restored to liberty, they must, from necessity, beg or 
steal, or destroy and displace the whites. What causes will 
produce this necessity, we are uninformed ; why it will be im- 
possible for liberated slaves to work for wages, is unexplained. 
Slavery is property in human beings. Immediate emancipation 
is therefore nothing more than the immediate cessation of this 
property. But how does this cessation of property imply that 
those who were the subjects of it must be " let loose ? " Will 
they not, like other persons, be subject to the control of law, 

* The only exception known to the writer, is G. Smith, Esq. 



168 jay's works. 

and responsible for their conduct ? If incapable of providing 
for themselves, may they not, like children, apprentices, and 
paupers, be compelled to labor for their own maintenance ? Im- 
mediate emancipation does not necessarily contemplate any 
relaxation of the restraints of government or morality ; any 
admission to political rights, or improper exemption from com- 
pulsory labor. "What then does such emancipation imply ? It 
implies, that black men, being no longer property, will be capa- 
ble of entering into the marriage state, and of exercising the 
rights, and enjoying the blessings of the conjugal and parental 
relations ; it implies, that they will be entitled to the fruits of 
their honest industry, to the protection of the laws of the land, 
and to the privilege of securing a happy immortality, by learning 
and obeying the will of their Creator. 

Now it is almost universally supposed that such emancipation 
would, as a matter of course, lead to insurrection, robbery, and 
massacre. Yet this opinion will, on examination, be found 
utterly irreconcilable with the divine economy, the principles of 
human nature, and the testimony of experience. 

It is a trite remark, that nations are punished and rewarded 
in this world, and individuals in the next ; and both sacred and 
profane history will be searched in vain for an instance in which 
the Supreme Ruler has permitted a nation to surfer for doing 
justice and loving mercy. To believe that God would permit 
any community to be destroyed, merely because it had ceased 
to do" evil, is to call in question the equity of his government, or 
the power of his providence. Who that acknowledges the truth 
of Revelation, can doubt, that if slavery be sinful, the sooner 
we part with it, the more confidently may we rely on the divine 
favor and protection ? Infidelity alone will seek safety in human 
counsels, when opposed to the divine will. 

But the opinion we are considering is no less at variance with 
the motives and passions of our common nature than with the 
dictates of Christian faith. 

What is the theory on which this opinion rests ? Why, that 
cruelty, injustice and grievous oppression, render men quiet, 
docile, and inoffensive subjects ; and that if delivered from this 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 169 

cruelty, injustice, and oppression, they will rob and murder their 
deliverers ! 

This theory is happily unsupported by any facts, and rests 
upon the simple dogma that the slaves are not yet fitted for 
freedom. Now we would ask, What it meant by fitness for 
freedom ? Ought a man to be a slave, unless he can read, write, 
and cipher ? Must he be taught accounts, before he can receive 
wages ? Should he understand law, before he enjoys its pro- 
tection ? Must he be instructed in morals, before he reads his 
Bible ? If all these are pre-requisites for freedom, how and 
when are they to be acquired in slavery ? 

If one century of bondage has not produced this fitness, how 
many Avill ? Are our slaves more fit now, than they were ten, 
twenty, fifty years ago ? Let the history of slave legislation 
answer the inquiry. When the British government insisted that 
female slaves should no longer be flogged naked in the colonies, 
the Jamaica legislature replied, that it would be impossible to 
lay aside the practice " until the negro women have acquired 
more of the sense of shame which distinguishes European 
females." Slaves, while such, will become fit for freedom as 
soon, but not sooner, than negro women will become modest in 
consequence of the West Indian mode of correction. No post- 
ponement of emancipation will increase the fitness of slaves for 
freedom ; and to wait for this fitness, resembles the conduct of 
the simpleton who loitered by the brook, expecting to pass dry 
shod after the water had run off. 

The conclusion to which religion and common sense would 
lead us on this subject, is most abundantly confirmed by experi- 
ence. Passing by the emancipation of the serfs of Europe, let 
us advert to various instances of the sudden abolition of negro 
slavery, and let us see how far the theory we are considering is 
supported by facts. 

On the 10th 'of October, 1811, the Congress of Chili decreed 
that every child born after that day should be free. 

On the 9th of April, 1812, the government of Buenos Ayres 
ordered that every child born after 1st January, 1813, should 
be free. 

15* 



170 jay's works. 

On the 19th of July, 1821, the Congress of Colombia passed 
an act, emancipating all slaves who had borne arms in favor of 
the Republic, and providing for the emancipation, in eighteen 
years, of the whole slave population of 280,000. 

On the 15th of September, 1821, the government of Mexico 
granted instantaneous and unconditional emancipation to every 
slave. 

On the 4th of July, 1827, ten thousand slaves were emanci- 
pated in the State of New York by act of the Legislature. 

In all these various instances, not one case of insurrection or 
of bloodshed is known to have resulted from emancipation. But 
St. Domingo — ah, what recollections are awakened by that 
name ! With that name are associated the most irrefragable 
proofs of the safety and wisdom of immediate emancipation, 
and of the ability of the African race to value, defend, and 
enjoy the blessings of freedom. The apologists of slavery are 
constantly reminding abolitionists of the " scenes in St. Do- 
mingo." Were the public familiar with the origin and history 
of those scenes, none but abolitionists would dare to refer to 
them. We will endeavor in the next chapter to dispel the ignor- 
ance which so extensively prevails relative to the " scenes in St. 
Domingo," and we trust our efforts will furnish new confirmation 
of the great truth, that the path of duty is the path of safety. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 171 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EMANCIPATION IN ST. DOMINGO AND GUADALOUPE, AND 
PRESENT STATE OP ST. DOMINGO. 

In 1790, the population of the French part of St. Domingo 
was estimated at 686,000. Of this number, 42,000 were white, 
44,000 free people of color, and 600,000 slaves. At the com- 
mencement of the French Revolution the free colored people 
petitioned the National Assembly to be admitted to political 
rights, and sent a deputation to Paris to attend to their interests. 
On the 8th of March, 1790, a law was passed, granting to the 
colonies the right of holding representative assemblies, and of 
exercising, to a certain extent, legislative authority. On the 
28th of the same month, another law was passed, declaring that 
" all free persons in the colonies, who were proprietors, and 
residents of two years' "standing, and who contribute to the 
exigencies of the State, shall exercise the right of voting." 

The planters insisted that this law did not apply to free color- 
ed persons. They proceeded to elect a general assembly, and 
in this election the free blacks were, with but few exceptions, 
prevented from voting. The newly elected assembly issued a 
manifesto, declaring they would rather die, than divide their 
political rights with " a bastard and degenerated race." A por- 
tion of the free colored people resolved to maintain the rights 
given them by the mother country, and assembled in arms under 
one of their own number named Oge. A letter addressed by 
this chief to the St. Domingo assembly is fortunately extant, 
and explains the true origin of those awful calamities, which it 
is found expedient to ascribe to the abolition of slavery. 

" Sirs, — A prejudice for a long time upheld, is at last about to fall. 
Charged with a commission honorable to myself, I call upon you to 
proclaim throughout the colony the decree of the National Assembly 
of the 28th of March, which gives, without distinction, to every free 
citizen the right of being admitted to all duties and functions whatever. 
My pretentions are just, and I do hope you will regard them. / shall 
not have recourse to any raising of the slave gangs. It is unnecessary, 



172 jay's works. 

and would be unworthy of me. I wish you to appreciate duly the 
purity of my intentions. When I solicited of the National Assembly * 
the decree I obtained in favor of our American colonists, known under 
the hitherto injurious distinction of the mixed race, / never compre- 
hended in my claims the negroes in a state of slavery. You and our ad- 
versaries have mixed this with my proceedings to destroy my estimation 
in the minds of all well-disposed people : but I have demanded only 
concessions for a class of free men, who have endured the yoke of your 
oppression for two centuries. We have no wish but for the execution 
of the decree of the 28th of March. We insist on its pi-omulgation ; 
and we cease not to repeat to our friends, that our adversaries are not 
merely unjust to us, but to themselves, for they do not seem to know 
that their interests are one with ours. Before employing the means at 
my command, I will see what good temper will do ; but if, contrary to 
my object, you refuse what is asked, I will not answer for those disor- 
ders which may arise from merited revenge." 

The shout of battle was the only answer returned to this let- 
ter. The free blacks were defeated, and their brave leader 
being taken pi-isoner, was, with a barbarity equalled only by its 
folly, broken alive on the wheel. A ferocious struggle now com- 
menced between the two parties, and Oge's death was awfully 
avenged. On the 15th of May, 1791, the French Convention 
issued a decree declaring explicitly, that " free colored persons 
were entitled to all the rights of citizenship." The planters, 
however, refused to submit till after 2,000 whites and 10,000 
blacks had perished. The free blacks had armed their own 
slaves ; and many of the slaves belonging to the whites, taking 
advantage of the disturbed state of the island, revolted. The 
general assembly at length became alarmed, and on the 20th of 
September, 1791, issued a proclamation announcing their acqui- 
escence in the decree of the loth of May, admitting the free 
blacks to political equality with the whites. This proclamation 
immediately restored peace, and the free blacks even assisted the 
planters in reducing to obedience their revolted slaves. The peace, 
however, was of short duration. Intelligence was soon received 
that the French Convention had yielded to the clamors of the 
planters, and on the 24th of September, only four days after the 
Assembly's proclamation, had repealed the decree giving politi- 
cal rights to the free blacks. The irritation caused by this 

* Oge had been one of the deputies who were sent to Paris. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 173 

measure may easily be imagined, and the feelings of the free 
blacks were exasperated by an act of folly and presumption on 
the part of the Colonial Assembly. This body passed an order 
for disarming the whole free colored population. That popula- 
tion, however, instead of surrendering their arms, challenged 
their proud oppressors to take them, and immediately renewed 
the war. 

On the 4th of April, 1792, the vacillating policy of the French 
government led it once more to pass a decree, investing the free 
negroes in the colonies with political rights ; and three Commis- 
sioners, with G,000 troops, were sent to St. Domingo to enforce 
the decree. The Commissioners arrived on the 13th of Sep- 
tember, and assumed the government of the island. In June, 
1793, they quarrelled with the governor, and each party took 
arms. The Commissioners called to their aid 3,000 revolted 
slaves, promising pardon for the past, and freedom for the future. 
About this time it was estimated that no less than 10,000 of the 
white inhabitants had fled from the island, in consequence of its 
disturbed state, and this, be it remembered, before a single slave 
had been emancipated. The Commissioners were successful in 
their contest with the governor, and retained the supreme power 
in their own hands. But a new danger threatened them. The 
planters were dissatisfied with the political rights conferred on the 
blacks, and were in many instances hostile to the Republic which 
had been reared on the ruins of the French Monarchy. They 
therefore entered into intrigues with the British Government, 
inviting it to take possession of the island, hoping that thus the 
old order of things would be restored. The Commissioners 
became acquainted with the intentions of the British to invade 
the island. Their only defensive force consisted of the G,000 
French troops and about 15,000 militia. On the latter they 
were sensible but little reliance could be placed. Under these 
circumstances, they determined to emancipate the slaves, in 
order that the whole colored population might thus be induced 
to array itself under the Republican standard. Bryant Edwards, 
a well-known English writer, and a most devoted apologist for 
slavery, in his history of this affair, after stating as a fact 



174 jay's works. 

within his own knowledge, the overtures made by the St. Do- 
mingo planters to Great Britain, and that the Commissioners 
could not muster more than 22,000 effective men, adds ; " These 
being necessarily dispersed in detachments throughout the 
different provinces, became, on that account, little formidable to 
an invading army. Aware of this circumstance, the Commis- 
sioners, on the first intimation of an attack from the English, 
resorted to the desperate expedient of proclaiming all manner of 
slavery abolished." 

The proclamation was made in September, 1793, and on the 
19th of the same month, the British armament, under Colonel 
Wbite, arrived at Jeremie, and took possession of the town, and 
afterwards entered Port au Prince. Thus we find that the 
abolition of slavery in St. Domingo was not, as is generally 
supposed, the result of an insurrection by the slaves, but an act 
of political expediency. Let us now see what were the conse- 
quences of this act. The Avhole colored population remained 
loyal to the Republican cause. The British were masters only 
of the soil covered by their troops, and at length, wearied out by 
the inveterate opposition they experienced, they abandoned all 
hopes of conquest, and in 1798 evacuated the island. In the 
mean time, the intercourse between the colony and the mother 
country became more and more interrupted. The seas were 
scoured by British cruisers, and the colonists were left by France 
to govern themselves. The whole colonial administration had 
been entirely subverted, the Commmissioners had returned to 
France, and it became necessary to adopt some political system. 
Under these circumstances, Toussaint, a black, who had acquired 
power and influence, submitted, in 1801, to a general assembly, 
a republican constitution, which was adopted, and the island was 
declared to be an independent State on the 1st of July, 1801. 
But during all this time, what was the conduct of the emanci- 
pated slaves ? Before we answer this question, let us remind the 
reader that the emancipation was not only immediate but unpre- 
meditated. No measures had been taken to jit about 600,000 
slaves for freedom, but suddenly, unexpectedly, almost in the 
twinkling of an eye, they ceased to be property, and were in- 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 175 

vested with the rights of human nature. And was the theory of 
the Rev. Dr. Hawkes verified in St. Domingo ? Did the manu- 
mitted slaves maintain themselves by begging and stealing, or 
did they destroy and displace the whites ? Let an eye-witness 
answer the inquiry. Col. Malefant, then a resident on the 
island, says in his Memoire Mstorique et politique des colonies et 
particulierement de celle de St. Domingue" p. 58 : — ■ 

" After this public act of emancipation, the negroes remained quiet 
both in the south and in the west, and they continued to work upon 
all the plantations. There were estates, indeed, which had neither 
owners nor managers resident upon them, for some of them had 
been put in prison by Montburn, and others, fearing the same fate, 
had fled to the quarter which had just been given up to the English. 
Yet upon these estates, though abandoned, the negroes continued their 
labors, where there were any, even inferior agents to guide them, and 
on those estates where no white men were left to direct them, they 
betook themselves to planting of provisions : hut upon all the planta- 
tions where the whites resided, the blacks continued to labor quietly as 
before." 

In another place, (p. 125,) he says : 

" How did I succeed in the plain of the Cul de Sac, and on the 
plantation Gouraud, more than eight months after liberty had been 
granted to the blacks ? Let those who knew me at that time, and even 
the blacks themselves be asked. They will reply that not a single 
negro upon that plantation, consisting of four hundred and fifty labor 
ers, refused to work, and yet this plantation was thought to be under 
the worst discipline, and the slaves the most idle of any in the plain. 
I myself inspired the same activity into three other plantations of 
which I had the management." 

He goes on to assert that " the colony was flourishing under 
Toussaint — the whites lived happily, and in peace upon their 
estates, and the negroes continued to work for them." Toussaint 
came into power under the French authority, 1796, and re- 
| mained in power till 1802, or the commencement of the war 
; with France. Thus it appears that the manumitted slaves con- 
tinued quietly at work, from their emancipation in 1793, till 
f 1802, a period of about eight years. 

This was not, let it be remembered, a season of peace. Dur- 
\ ing most of the time a fieree war was waged against the English 
; invaders. In this war a portion of the planters took part with 



17G jay's works. 

the enemy, and experienced at the hands of the blacks, those 
cruelties which so often distinguish a civil war. But on a careful 
and scrupulous examination of the history of this period, we 
cannot find, that from the date of the emancipation in 1793, to 
the French invasion in 1802, a single ivhite man was injured by 
the liberated slaves, unless he had previously placed himself in 
the attitude of a political enemy by siding with the British. 
Immediately on the evacuation of the island by the British, pro- 
found tranquillity prevailed, and the planters who remained, and 
the emigrants who returned, enjoyed their estates without 
molestation. 

Malefant is not the only witness we can cite to these facts. 
General Lacroix, who published his " Memoirs for a history of 
St. Domingo," at Paris, in 1819, speaking of the colony, in 1797, 
says : 

" It marched as by enchantment towards its ancient splendor : culti- 
vation prospered ; every day produced perceptible proofs of its pro- 
gress. The city of the Cape, and the plantations of the North, rose up 
again visibly to the eye." P. 311. 

The author of " the History of St. Domingo," printed in Lon- 
don, 1818, speaking of Toussaint, says : 

" When he restored many of the planters to their estates, there was 
no restoration of their former property in human beings. No human 
being was to be bought or sold. Severe tasks, flagellations, and scanty 
food, were no longer to be endured. The planters were obliged to 
employ their laborers on the footing of hired servants ; and the negroes 
were required to labor for their own livelihood. The amount of 
remuneration was not left to individual generosity or private agree- 
ment, but it was fixed by law, that the cultivators should have for their 
wages a third part of the crops. While this ample encouragement was 
afforded for the excitement of industry, penalties were at the same 
time denounced for the punishment of idleness." 

" The effects of these regulations were visible throughout the coun- 
try. Obliged to work, but in a moderate manner, and for handsome 
wages, and at liberty for the most part to choose their own masters, the' 
plantation negroes were in general contented, healthy and happy."* 

* These representations are confirmed by the fact, that the exports from 
St. Domingo in 1801, seven years after emancipation, were of sugar, 18,535,- 
132 lbs. ; coffee, 43,420,270 lbs. ; cotton, 2,480,310 lbs. McCulioch's Diet, of 
Commerce, p. 92G. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 177 

And now let abolitionists be reminded of the " scenes in St. 
Domingo ; " yes, let those scenes be constantly kept before the 
public as an awful and affecting memento of the justice due to 
the free blacks, and as a glorious demonstration of the perfect 
safety of immediate and unconditional emancipation. 

Yet men who believe it safe to do immediate justice, and who 
find from history that God never permits a nation to suffer for 
obeying his commands, are held up to the derision and detesta- 
tion of the community as fanatics and incendiaries. Let us see 
what new proofs of their fanaticism are afforded by the history 
of the abolition of slavery in Guadaloupe. 

On the 20th of April, 1794, a British armament, under Sir 
Charles Grey, took the French island of Guadaloupe, many of 
the planters, as in St. Domingo, being royalists and favoring the 
cause of the invaders. 

On the 5th of June following, a French force, under Victor 
Hugo, arrived to dispute the possession of the island. The 
Republican general immediately proclaimed the freedom of the 
slaves, in pursuance of a decree of the National Assembly of 
the preceding February, and arming the negroes, led them 
against the enemy. The English were soon confined within 
narrow quarters, and by the 10 th of December, were compelled 
to evacuate the island. From this time, Guadaloupe remained 
a dependance of France till 1810, when it was retaken by the 
English. 

On the abolition of slavery la police rurale was substituted 
for it. The slaves were converted into free laborers, and were 
entitled to their food and one-fourth of the produce of their 
labor. They were 85,000 in number, and the whites only 
13,000. So far was the cultivation of the island from being 
suspended by emancipation, that in 1801, an official report 
stated the plantations as follows, viz. : of sugar, 390 ; of coffee, 
1355 ; of cotton, 328 ; and 25 grass farms. The peace of 
Amiens unhappily afforded Bonaparte an opportunity to re- 
establish slavery in Guadaloupe. In the summer of 1802, 
Richepanse landed on the island at the head of a powerful 
French force, and in a short time, by the indiscriminate inas- 
16 



178 jay's works. 

sacre of all who opposed his purpose, fulfilled the ohject of 
his mission at the sacrifice, it is said, of nearly 20,000 negro 
lives. 

Immediately preceding this atrocious act, all was peace and 
prosperity; and so late as February, 1802, the supreme council 
of Guadaloupe, in an official document, alluding to the tran- 
quillity which reigned throughout the island, observed : 

" We shall have the satisfaction of having given an example, which 
will prove that all classes of people may live in perfect harmony with 
each other, under an administration which secures justice to all 

CLASSES." 

In Guadaloupe, we see an instance of a great preponderating 
slave population suddenly emancipated, and yet peaceably pur- 
suing their labors for seven years, and living in harmony with 
the white proprietors. 

If we are to believe colonizationists, the negro character is to 
be exhibited in all its perfection in Liberia ; but in America, 
the black man can never rise from his present degradation. Do 
we inquire the reason, we are promptly told that no equality 
can subsist between the white and black races, and that the 
latter to be great and happy must live alone. Strange it is, that 
instead of referring to St. Domingo as an apt illustration of 
their theory, they are fond of citing the present state of that island 
as a warning against abolition, — as a proof that free negroes 
are too indolent to work, too deficient in enterprise to attain 
national prosperity. If such be the fact how faithless must be 
their predictions of the future glory of Liberia. Let us now 
attend to the gloomy and disheartening account which the chair- 
man of the Executive Committee of the New York Colonization 
Society gives us of St. Domingo ; an account which, if true, 
ought to induce the Society to abandon their enterprise. 

" More than thirty years have elapsed since slavery was abolished 
in St. Domingo. Through scenes of unparalleled devastation and 
blood, the blacks expelled their white masters, and have ever since lived 
under a government of their own. But from the day of their emanci- 
pation to the present, the population, for the most part, have been idle 
and worthless." 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 179 

" St. Domingo was the garden of the new world — the richest of the 
Indies. But its villas has gone to ruin, and its fields run to waste. 
Thorns and briars have choked their gardens, and the plantations have 
been barren from idleness. The government has ever been despotic, 
and of necessity ; and at last its power has been called forth for 
the regulation of labor — the labor of freemen, to prevent the island 
from going entirely to ruin. The following extract from a late Haytien 
enactment is in point, and will serve as a practical commentary upon 
the mad schemes of our well-meaning but deluded philanthropists. We 
have extracted the following articles, which render the condition of the 
free blacks very little different from, if not actually worse than the con- 
dition of the slaves in any part of the United States." * Com. Advertiser, 
24th of September, 1834. 

Then follow extracts from the rural code of Hayti, from 
which it appears, that all persons without land or occupation are 
compelled to labor, and are liable to imprisonment for idleness. 

It is remarkable that the philanthropists, on whose mad 
schemes this code is supposed to be a commentary, are admitted 
on the 24th of September to be " well-meaning," whereas, on 
the 9th of June preceding, we were assured by this same gen- 
tleman, that the "design" of these philanthropists was "to 
foment a servile war in the South." To convince us how unfit 
negroes are for freedom, we are here informed that thirty years 
after slavery was abolished in St. Domingo, the government has 
at last exerted its power for the regulation of labor, to prevent 
the island from going entirely to ruin. It so happens that the regu- 
lation of labor, instead of being an expedient resolved on at last to 
save the island from ruin, was coeval with the act of emancipa- 

* This last assertion is so very extraordinary, that we are constrained to 
believe Mr. Stone has never read the " enactment " from which he quotes. 
The present rural code of Hay ti was adopted in 1826. It is a document filling 
about fifteen folio pages, and displays a strong desire to secure justice to 
the laborers. By this code, all " who shall not be able to show that they 
possess the means of subsistence, shall be bound to cultivate the earth." 
Such persons are required to hire themselves as farm laborers, but they are 
at perfect liberty to select their employer. The parties enter into written 
contracts for not less than three, nor more than nine years. The compen- 
sation to the laborers on a farm, varies according to the terms of the contract, 
from one-fourth to one-half of the whole produce of the farm. All disputes 
between the employer and his people are settled by a justice of the peace. 
The employer can no more flog or otherwise punish his " cultivators," than 
an American farmer can his hired laborers. Not even for crimes is corporal 
punishment allowed in Hayti. The cultivator has, by law, the whole of 
Saturday and Sunday to himself, and on other days he cannot be required 
to work after sunset. There is nothing to prevent him from accumulating 
property by industry and economy, buying a farm and hiring laborers in his 
turn. 



180 jay's works. 

tion. On the 28th of February, 1794, Etienne Polverel, " civil 
commissary of the Republic, delegated to the French Leeward 
islands in America, for the purpose of reestablishing the public 
order and tranquillity," published in the name of the French 
people a rural code for the government of the liberated slaves 
in St. Domingo. It is long, and descends to minute particulars ; 
a brief extract will show that it regulated labor. 

" The ordinary day's labor is limited to about nine hours, viz. : from 
sunrise to half-past eight — from half-past nine to twelve — and from 
two to sunset ; and in crop time, it shall be extended to eight o'clock 
in the evening. The laborers shall be bound to obey the overseers, 
and the overseers to obey each other, according to their rank ; but their 
authority shall be confined to the cultivation and good order of the 
plantation. Those laborers -who in these points shall refuse to obey the 
order of the overseers, shall be subject to a month's imprisonment, loith 
labor during the day on public loorks" &c, &c. 

This code continued in force till August, 1798, when it was 
somewhat modified by Toussaint, and we have already seen, on 
the authority of the history of St. Domingo, that " the planters 
were obliged to employ their laborers on the footing of hired 
servants, and the negroes were required to labor for their liveli- 
hood." Hence it appears that the regulation of labor in St. 
Domingo is not, as Mr. Stone seems to suppose, a recent exer- 
tion of power on the part of the government. 

But what shall we say of the ruined villas, the barren plan- 
tations, the gardens choked with thorns ? Admitting Mr. 
Stone's melancholy picture to be correct, cannot we explain it 
on other principles than such as would be fatal to the freedom 
and happiness of millions ? The zealous editor seems wholly 
to have forgotten the terrible Avar which the Ilaytiens were com- 
pelled to wage in defence of their liberty. In 1802, a French 
army landed in St. Domingo, for the purpose of again reducing 
its inhabitants to slavery, and a war ensued, which, for its deso- 
lating fury, is probably without a parallel. A historian of this 
war, thus concludes his account of it : 

" At length, in the month of December, 1803, the island was finally 
abandoned" a mere handful of the French troops escaping the destruc- 
tion which had already overtaken 60,000 of their fellows ! Thus for 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 181 

nearly two years, with a very brief interval, had a war raged in St. 
Domingo, singularly ferocious and vindictive in its character, and 
directed latterly more to extermination than to conquest, sparing neither 
sex nor age, and sweeping away from the whole face of the plains of 
that beautiful island every trace of cultivation. So complete was the 
extinction of all sugar culture in particular, that for a time not an 
ounce of that article was procurable. The very roots and fruits on 
which subsistence depended, were cultivated only in mornes. Desola- 
tion, therefore, could hardly be conceived more complete, than pre- 
vailed in 1804 and 1805 over all those parts of the colony which had 
formerly been covered ivith plantations ; and it is well known how soon 
the rank vegetation of a tropical climate converts the neglected plan- 
tation into jungle." 

And is it a proof that slaves ought never to be emancipated 
that St. Domingo has not in thirty years, after such wide-spread 
desolation, become again in the hands of men recently delivered 
from bondage, and for the most part, poor and ignorant, " the 
garden of the new world ? " And was, indeed, that an " idle 
and worthless " population which successfully resisted the arms 
of England and of France, and achieved their freedom by a 
heroic sacrifice of their lives and property — a sacrifice which, 
had their complexion been white, would have been celebrated 
by poets and orators in every portion of the civilized world ? 

Let us now inquire, whether the present state of the island is 
in truth such as is alleged. 

The Rev. Simon Clough, D. D., LL. D., has lately published 
a pamphlet, (" Appeal to the Citizens of the United States ") 
in which he undertakes to justify slavery from the Scriptures, 
and to prove that all clergymen who advocate immediate aboli- 
tion, are " false teachers," and ought to be dismissed by their 
congregations. Now this most veracious teacher, speaking 'of 
St. Domingo, assures us, p. 1 6 : "At the present time,* there is 
not one sugar, coffee, or cotton plantation on the island. There 
is now exported about five million pounds of inferior coffee, which 
grows wild, and is picked up by the inhabitants off the ground, 
where it falls after it becomes ripe." 

Strange it is, that this island, if in the state described by 
Messrs. Stone and Clough, should support a population of 

*The pamphlet was published in New York, 1834. 
16* 



182 jay's works. 

935,050.* Still more strange is it, that when the whole export 
of coffee is only about five million pounds, it should appear from 
the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, that the coffee 
exported in 1833, from Hayti to the United States alone, amount- 
ed to eleven million, seven hundred eighty-four thousand, eight 
hundred and thirty-five pounds. Most passing strange is it, that 
the imports into this country, in the same year, from an island 
in which there is not ONE sugar, coffee, or cotton plantation ; 
with an idle and worthless population ; with its fields run to 
waste, and its plantations barren from idleness, should neverthe- 
less exceed in value our imports in the same period, from either 
Prussia — Sweden and Norway — Denmark, and the Danish 
"West Indies — Ireland and Scotland — Holland — Belgium — 
Dutch East Indies — British West Indies — Spain — Portugal 
— all Italy — Turkey and the Levant — or any one republic in 
South America ! f 

Neither Mr. Stone nor Dr. Clough professes to speak from 
personal observation. Let us then listen to an eye-witness. In 
1831, was published in a London periodical, the journal of a 
traveller in Hayti. The following are extracts : 

" Port au Prince, Island of Hayti, June 25, 1830. 

" Being aware that this city had very recently suffered greatly by 
fire, I expected to see an unsightly waste of ruin and decay ; but the 
lots are rebuilt, and many a splendid and substantial edifice, surpassing 
those to be seen in the city of Kingston in Jamaica, has arisen as the 
first fruits of the security which property enjoys, by the recognized 
independence of Hayti. 

" I have made an excursion or two, just out of the town, to the little 
cottage settlements on the side of the mountain above the city. I am 
tofd, that in the ancient regime, (that is the phrase here for the old 
state of things,) the plains were a source of so abundant a return for 
the industry of the proprietor, that the mountains in this neighborhood 
were comparatively neglected, so that the ' Camp des Fourmis,' the 
range of hills so called, extending from Point Lamentine to the Cul de 
Sac, were heretofore never cultivated as they are now. At present 
they are covered with a thousand small settlements appropriated to coffee, 
and provisions, and fruits, and vegetables, in which the advantages of 
irrigation, presented by the frequent springs, bursting from the moun- 

* Census of 1824. 

fSee documents accompanying Letters from Secretary of the Treasury to 
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, 21st April, 1834. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 183 

tain ravines, have been diligently attended to in the agricultural econ- 
omy. The water is trenched over the sunny surface of" each projecting 
irregularity of the ridge ; and height above height, the cottage of the 
humble cultivator is seen ; or the substantial country-seat of the Hay- 
tien merchant, with its baths, bowers, and terraced gardens, has been 
erected. 

" Port au Prince, though by no means a handsome town, is at this 
day, in style, and one may say splendor, far superior to what it was in 
the colonial period of its history. 

" The frequent calamities to which it had been subjected from fire, 
and the immense and valuable property lost by earthquakes in the 
years 1820 and 1822, have led the Ilaytiens to attempt providing 
against the two-fold liability, as they expressed it, of being bouleverse 
et incendie. They have commenced reerecting some of the houses 
destroyed by these conflagrations, with stone or brick, cased over 
wooden frames, at once to sustain the shock of the earthquake, and to 
repel the action of the fire. They cover the roofs with tiles or slates, 
rather than shingles ; and erect their stores for merchandise with fire- 
proof terraces, and wrought-iron doors and windows. These buildings 
have galleries and arched colonnades, with heavy cornices and balus- 
trades screening the roof; and floors of variegated marble, and tiles in 
the upper as well as lower stories. If continued generally, they will 
render this city not only one of the most elegant in the West Indies, 
but one in which the houses will exhibit an interior economy, the very 
best adapted to the necessities of the climate. The decorations are 
appropriate. The rich, varied mahogany of the country is manufac- 
tured into elegant furniture by the artisans here ; and the French taste 
of gilded mirrors, or Molu clocks, and porcelain vases, filled with arti- 
ficial Mowers, impart to the dwellings of the simple Ilaytiens an air of 
refinement not unworthy of Europe. 

" The scene presented to the view of the traveller who quits the city 
of Port au Prince, to journey on the highway to the mountains, through 
a wild waste, is not a solitary one. On the road he will meet a multi- 
tude of cultivators coming to the city market, with horses and asses 
loaded with provisions. lie will see wagons with produce drawn bv 
hardy and healthy cattle. If he departs from the high road, and turns 
to the right hand through one of the woodland paths, he will find him- 
self entering into open grounds, covered with verdant fields ; he will 
see traces every where visible of renewed cultivation ; mansions re- 
erected ; aqueducts reconducting their streams to irrigate the land ; the 
sound of water-mills at work ; cottages no longer deserted, but tenanted 
by laborers once more issuing from them to gather in the harvest of 
the teeming soil. 

" The island of Jamaica does not exhibit a plantation better estab- 
lished than Chateau Blond ; whether we consider the resources of the 
j land, or the mechanical economy by which those resources are com- 
' manded, it is a splendid establishment. 

" To me who have had an opportunity from the day of my birth, and 

, long residence in a slave colony, of forming by comparison a correct 

i estimate of this people's advancement, the general quiet conduct and 

; respectful behavior of all classes here, publicly and privately, is a 

matter exciting great surprise." 



184 jay's works. 

All this, it may be said, is anonymous testimony. It is so, 
and yet it seems entitled to at least as much weight as the bare, 
naked assertions of Messrs. Stone and Clough. "We will now 
offer testimony to which we presume no objection will be made. 
The following are extracts from " the report of the select com- 
mittee on the extinction of slavery throughout the British Do- 
minions, with minutes of evidence, ordered by the House of 
Commons to be printed, 11th August, 1832." 

Evidence of Mr. Robert Sutherland. 

" Are there many persons who work for hire in Hayti ? 

" Yes, the whole cultivation is carried on by free labor. 

" Do these persons work with industry and vigor ? 

"I have no reason to think they do not. The proof that free labor 
in Hayti answers, is this : that after the French were expelled, there was 
absolutely no sugar work ; there was no mill ; there was nothing of that- 
kind which could be put in use ; it was destroyed ; and since that 
period, various plantations have grown up in Hayti. Men have gone 
to the expense of thirty and forty thousand dollars, to build up those 
sugar works ; and it stands to reason, that unless these men were repaid 
for their capital they would not continue that sort of work. And there 
is another thing to be observed, that sugar is not the staple commodity 
of Hayti ; they only make sufficient for their own consumption. Cof- 
fee is the staple commodity of the island. 

" If a man can show that he has the means of subsistence of his own, 
is he compelled to labor under the code rurale ? 

" Decidedly not. 

" Do you believe that corporal punishment is inflicted upon any of 
the laborers in Hayti ? 

" I believe it is impossible. I have seen the peasantry in the High- 
lands of Scotland where I was brought up, and I declare that the ne- 
groes in St. Domingo are comparatively as much superior to them in 
comfort as it is possible for one man to be over another." 

Evidence of the Vice Admiral, the Hon. Charles Fleming, member of 
Parliament. 

" Was told that vagrants and deserters worked by compulsion, but 
he did not see any himself. Had never heaixl of any working under 
the lash. The lash was prohibited by law. The Haytiens appeared to 
him the happiest, best fed, and most comfortable negroes he had ever 
seen ; better off even than in the Caraccas : infinitely better than in 
Jamaica ; there was no comparison between them. He could not speak 
positively of the increase of the Haytien population since 1804, but 
believed it had trebled since that time. They now feed themselves, and 
they export provisions, which neither the French nor the Spaniards 
had ever done before. 

" He saw a sugar estate near Cape Haytien, General Boulon's, ex- 
tremely well cultivated, and in beautiful order. It was wrought by 






AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 185 

blacks, all free. A new plantation was forming on the opposite side of 
the road. Their victuals were very superior to those in Jamaica, con- 
sisting chiefly of meat, cattle being very cheap. The highest contract 
beef in Hayti, was 2d.; in Jamaica, it was 12d. He saw no marks of 
destitution any where. The country seemed improving, and trade in- 
creasing. The estate he visited near the Cape was large ; it was cal- 
culated to make 300 hogsheads of sugar. It was beautifully laid out, 
and as well managed as any estate he had seen in the West Indies. 
His official correspondence as Admiral with the Haytien government, 
made him attribute much efficiency to it, and it bore strong marks of 
civilization. There was a better police in Hayti, than in the new 
South American States ; the communication was more rapid ; the roads 
much better. One had been cut from Port au Prince to Cape Haytien, 
that would do honor to any country. A regular post was established. 
The government is one quite worthy of a civilized people. The negroes 
of Hayti are certainly richer, and happier, and in a better condition 
than he had ever seen elsewhere. They were all working in the fields 
when he was there. He rode about very much. He did not think 
any acts of oppression were practised on the people of Hayti by the 
government." 

Mr. Jeremie, late first president of the royal court of St. Lu- 
cia, informs us that in St. Domingo 

" Is found a happy, flourishing, and contented peasantry, engaged in 
the cultivation of their own small freeholds ; and as these persons 
acquire capital, they form larger establishments, and are gradually 
rising. This proves that the general wants of the community are sup- 
plied, and, if well governed, that community must soon acquire strength 
ind rise to importance." Essays on Colonial Slavery, 1832, p. 63. 

The following facts, collected from the new and valuable " Dic- 
ionary of Commerce and Commercial Navigation," by J. R. 
McCulloch, London edition, 1834, abundantly confirm the fore- 
going testimonies. 

In 1786, the exportation of coffee was about 35,000 tons. In conse- 
quence of the subsequent devastation of the island, the exportation 
or some years almost totally ceased ; but it has now risen to about 
20,000 tons ! p. 309. 

! The amount of the following articles, exported in 1832, was esti- 
mated as follows, viz. : 

, Coffee, 50,000,000 lbs. 

Cotton, 1,500,000 lbs. 

Tobacco, 500,000 lbs. 

Cocoa, 500,000 lbs. 

Dye wood, 5,000,000 lbs. 

Tortoise shell, 12,000 lbs. 

Mahogany, 6,000,000 feet 

Hides, 80,000— p. 927. 



186 joy's works. 

The quantity of sugar exported in 1832, is not stated ; but in 1826, 
it amounted to 32,864 lbs. ; and it should be recollected, that about 
twenty years before, not an ounce of that article was manufactured on 
the island, p. 926. 

The imports into France, in 1831, from Hayti, exceeded in value 
the imports from Sweden — Denmark, the Hanseatic Towns — Hol- 
land — Portugal — Austria — the French East Indies — or China, 
p. 637. 

In the same year, the importation of French wines into Hayti 
amounted to 108,495 gallons, p. 1250.* 

Cotton manufactures, to the amount of 6,828,576 yards, were ex- 
ported from Great Britain to Hayti in 1831, being about one-tenth the 
number of yards exported the same year to the United States, p. 446.- 

Our readers are now competent to judge for themselves how 
far the assertions of Mr. Stone and the Kev. Dr. Clough are 
consistent with truth ; and also what is " the practical commen- 
tary " offered by the history and present state of St. Domingo? 
on " the mad schemes of our well-meaning but deluded 
philanthropists." 



CHAPTEK IX. 

EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES. 

TnE British Government, in part to conciliate the West In- 
dia proprietors, and in part through apprehension of the danger 
of immediate emancipation, determined to abolish slavery in 
such a manner as to^fit the slave for freedom. Instead of breaking 
his yoke, it was to be reduced in weight ; and six years were to be 
occupied in filing off his manacles. On the first of last August, 
the slave was told and believed, that slavery was abolished ; but 
on the morrow, he was summoned to his usual task, and required 
to work as before, without reward. Astonished and disap- 



* The quantity of French wine imported the same year 
>r home consumption, was 254,366 gallons, p. 1255. 



into Great Britain | 
for 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 187 

pointed, he doubted the legality of the mandate, and hesitated 
to obey it. He was then informed, that, although no longer a 
slave, he was nevertheless an apprentice, and must toil on for 
six years longer, before he could enjoy the fruits of his labor. 
Had emancipation been nominally, as well as really, prospective, 
the slave would have regarded it as a boon ; but he did not 
readily comprehend the distinction between slavery and appren- 
ticeship. 

There was, however, a very important distinction, which he 
soon discovered, and which did not promote his acquiescence in 
I protracted wrong. The lash was, by act of Parliament, wrested 
'from the master's hand ; and while he was authorized to com- 
Jmand his apprentices to labor, he was forbidden to punish them 
for idleness or insubordination. On this subject a Jamaica paper 
remarks : 

" It is clear, and there is no use in disguising the fact, that the ap- 
prentices can no longer be coerced in the way they formerly were ; for 
in the first place, no magistrate can legally inflict more than twenty- 
nine stripes, and, in the next, it is not possible to furnish magistrates 
enough for the purpose. The hope, therefore, of coercing, is absurd, 
and must be abandoned." 

The conduct of the West India negroes, under these circum- 
stances, proves how utterly groundless are the apprehensions 
ntertained of emancipation. Disappointed and irritated, and 
it the same time almost wholly released from the control of their 
masters, they have exhibited a meekness, patience, and forbear- 
mce, utterly without a parallel. The great mass of the appren- 
ices continue to labor, but some have either refused to work, or 
iccomplish less than their appointed tasks. None of the insp- 
ections, murders and conflagrations, which were so confidently 
predicted by the enemies of abolition, have occurred. Not one 
• ife has yet been taken, not one dwelling fired,* throughout the 
,British West Indies, by the emancipated slaves. 

This forbearance is the more remarkable, when we consider 
he numerical superiority of the negroes, in the West Indies, 

* Two sheds, called trash houses, were lately burned in Jamaica, probably, 
nit not certainly, by an apprentice. 



188 jay's works. 

and particularly in Jamaica, where there are 331,000 slaves, 
and only 37,000 whites. 

Whatever may be the result of the apprenticeship experi- 
ment, abolitionists are not responsible for it. It was adopted 
contrary to their advice, and is inconsistent with the doctrines 
they profess. The emancipation which they believe to be most 
consonant with the will of God, most conducive to the safety 
and happiness of the whites, is immediate and unconditional. 
They rejoice that their doctrines are at this moment subjected 
to a severe and practical test, and they await the issue with un- 
shaken confidence. 

The Legislatures of Bermuda and Antigua, have adopted the 
very course which the American Anti-Slavery Society recom- 
mends to the slave States. With the permission of the British 
government, these Legislatures dispensed with the apprentice- 
ship altogether - , and on the first of last August, granted imme- 
diate and unqualified emancipation. That we may judge of the 
fanaticism, the madness, the reckless incendiarism- of these 
Legislatures, we must take into consideration the number of 
slaves they " let loose upon the community," and their relative 
proportion to the white population. 

In Bermuda there are 5,500 whites, 4,650 slaves, and 500 
free blacks. In Antigua, 2,000 whites, 30,000 slaves, and 4,500 
free blacks.* 

The Bermuda Gazette, of the 4th of August, thus speaks of 
the great change effected on the 1st. 

" The day was as remarkable for quietude, exemption from labor 
and solemnity, as that which marks the Sabbath in a Christian land. 
The only bustle perceptible was in preparation for attending public 
worship, which his Excellency the Governor most wisely ordered to be 
performed : thereby dedicating it wholly to God, the wilier and doer 
of this great work. The churches and other places of public worship 
on the island were crowded to excess, every possible accommodation 
being afforded to the colored people. From every quarter we hear oi 
their orderly, nay more, exemplary behavior. Four days of univer- 
sal freedom have now passed, and four days of more perfect regularity 
and quiet have these famed peaceful islands never witnessed." 

* American Almanac. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 189 

Such was the immediate result of turning loose 4,000 slaves. 
Let us now attend to the subsequent testimony. The Hon. Mr. 
Butterfield, Chief Justice of Bermuda, in his charge to the grand 
jury on the 6th of November, referring to the abolition of slaves 
in the island, observed : 

" This measure, which was necessarily one of fearful experiment, 
has not, I am happy to say, disappointed the hopes of the public, whose 
feelings in its favor were expressed with a unanimity as unexampled 
as, I am proud to say, altogether honorable to the character of the 
country. On the contrary, it is a subject of congratulation, and cer- 
tainly of commendation to the emancipated, that in three months during 
which we have been able to mark its working, the general character 
and comfort of society have improved, and the evils which some of its 
best friends apprehended, were in all cases overrated, and in some 
have hitherto had no existence." 

But in Bermuda the whites were equal to the blacks, and the 
manumitted slaves were perhaps restrained from outrage by the 
consciousness of their own weakness. It seems as if Provi- 
dence had provided facts to refute every argument that can be 
urged against abolition. Let us now turn to Antigua, where the 
slaves were to the whites as 15 to 1, and the free blacks as 3 to 
2, and see how far in this overwhelming preponderance of the 
colored over the white population, immediate emancipation con- 
firmed Dr. Hawkes's theory. Let the Antigua newspaper of 
7th of August, answer. 

" The great doubt is solved, the alarming prognostications of the ad- 
vocates of slavery are falsified, the highest hopes of the negroes' friends 
ulfilled, and their pledge honorably redeemed. A whole people, com- 
prising thirty thousand souls, have passed from slavery into freedom, 
jot only without the slightest irregularity, but with the solemn and 
lecorous tranquillity of a Sabbath. A week has nearly elapsed, and 
jilthough all eyes and ears are open, and reports spread rapidly, we 
fiave not heard of a single act of insolence, insubordination or violence 
Committed by any one of them, under false and licentious notions of 
reedom." 
I 

From the same paper, of the 14th of August: 

; " It is with the highest satisfaction we announce, that we know of 
nd believe that there is no gang of laborers in the island, ivhich has 
ot returned to its accustomed employment." 

17 



190 jay's works. 

So that two weeks after the slaves were " let loose," instead 
of begging and stealing, they were all quietly at work. 
We quote from the same paper of the 21st of August : 

" The third week of freedom will close with this day, and again we 
are bound to express our gratitude and praise to the Divine goodness, 
for the perfect peace and tranquillity which the island enjoys. Not 
the least symptom of insubordination has manifested itself any where ; 
and the daily accounts from all quarters testify to the excellent disposi- 
tion and conduct of the new freemen." 

In a letter from Antigua, dated August 80th, and published 
in a Norfolk paper, we find the following : 

" The operations of commerce have experienced no interruption ; 
public confidence remains unshaken. Two sugar plantations have 
recently leased for as much as they were worth with the negroes included, 
prior to emancipation" 

While the Jamaica papers are filled with complaints of the 
conduct of the apprentices, and predictions of the ruin of the 
island, one of them (10th September) says: 

" In Antigua, all appears to be peaceable and quiet. Its rulers 
evinced more wisdom, and proved themselves to be better tacticians, 
than those of any other colonies, Bermuda excepted. In getting rid 
of the apprenticeship, they got rid of the source, and only source of 
heartburning between them and their laborers ; and we maintain, as a 
free colony, will soon experience advantages not to be enjoyed by 
others, so long at least as the humbug continues." 

About eight months have now elapsed since the thirty thou- 
sand slaves of Antigua were suddenly " let loose," and, as yet, ' 
we have not heard of a single outrage committed by them. It 
had been customary in this island, as an additional security j 
against insurrection, to proclaim martial law at the Christmas | 
holidays, during which times the slaves had peculiar oppor- 1 
tunities for forming conspiracies. The great act of justice ac- 
complished on the first of August, relieved the planters of all j 
apprehension of insurrection ; and not only was the usual 
proclamation withheld at the last Christmas, but the militia was j 
exempted from duty. In a late speech by the Speaker of the 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 191 

Antigua House of Assembly, lie adverted to the "universal 
tranquillity " that prevailed, and to the " respectful demeanor of 
the lower classes ; " and declared that " the agricultural and 
commercial prosperity of the colony was absolutely on the 

ADVANCE." 



CHAPTER X. 

GRADUAL AND IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. 

If we have been successful in our endeavors to prove that 
the removal of slavery by colonization is both morally and 
physically impossible, then it necessarily follows, that the slaves 
must be emancipated here, or that slavery must be indefinitely 
continued. 

Should the former alternative be adopted, the important 
question occurs, — Ought the emancipation to be gradual or 
immediate ? 

If this question is to be determined with reference to moral 
obligation, it is certainly difficult for those who regard slavery 
as sinful to justify its continuance even for a limited time. If, 
however, the question is to be decided on the ground of mere 
political expediency, there are many and powerful objections to 
gradual emancipation ; and what may at first view appear para- 
doxical, the strength of these objections is proportioned to the 
number of slaves to be emancipated. 

In New York, slavery was for the most part gradually abol- 
ished ; that is, the children born after a certain day became free 
as they respectively reached the age of twenty-eight years ; and 
when the whole number of slaves was reduced to ten thousand, 
they were liberated in a single day. In New York, the white 
population so greatly exceeded the black, that no jealousy was 
entertained of the free negroes, and no inconvenience experi- 
enced in uniting free and slave labor. But in those States in 



192 jay's works/ 

which nearly all the laborers are slaves, where every free black 
is regarded as a nuisance and an incendiary, and where the 
planter would, on no consideration, permit him to labor in com- 
pany with his slaves, much difficulty would necessarily attend 
a gradual relinquishment of slave labor. 

Suppose, in South Carolina for instance, ten thousand slaves 
should be annually manumitted by law. This would certainly 
be gradual emancipation, as it would require about forty years 
to free the whole number. Now, what would become of these 
ten thousand yearly discharged from the plantations ? Would 
their late masters be willing to hire them, and turn them back 
into their cotton fields ? The supposition is extravagant. The 
planter would dread their influence on his remaining slaves, and 
these would certainly, and with great reason, be dissatisfied at 
seeing their -late companions working for wages, while they 
themselves were denied any compensation for their toil. But if 
the ten thousand liberated slaves were not employed, how could 
they obtain a livelihood, and how could the planters supply their 
place on the plantations ? The idea that by gradual emancipa- 
tion the slaves will become Jit for freedom, is visionary in the 
extreme. How is it possible that the liberation of a portion of 
the slaves, can qualify those who remain in chains to become 
useful citizens ? The house of bondage is not the school in 
which men are to be trained for liberty. 

As then gradual emancipation, however desirable, if no other 
can be obtained, is so full of difficulty, and, in the opinion of 
slave-holders, so dangerous that they have almost universally 
passed laws to prevent it, the only alternative is immediate 
emancipation or continued slavery. 

It seems scarcely possible that any conscientious man, after 
considering the results of immediate emancipation in St. Do- 
mingo and Guadaloupe, in New York, in Mexico, in South 
America, and m the West Indies, should join in the popular 
clamor against it, as necessarily leading to massacre and rapine. 
No reason can be assigned why the whites would not possess 
the same physical power to prevent or suppress outrage after, 
as before emancipation ; but abundant reason may be given, 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 193 

why the blacks, when restored to their rights, and enjoying the 
protection and privileges of civil society, should be less disposed 
to destroy their benefactors and deliverers, than they are when 
smarting under cruelty and injustice, to destroy those whom 
they regard as their tyrants and oppressors. 

Who, with the knowledge that no white man has ever been 
murdered in consequence of immediate emancipation, dares to 
declare in the presence of his Maker, that self-preservation 
forbids the abolition of slavery ? 

But we are met with the inquiry, How are the owners to be 
compensated for the loss of their property ? This same objec- 
tion was made to the suppression of the African slave-trade. 
British merchants had invested large capitals in the traffic, and 
it was contended that to prohibit the trade was to violate the 
rights of property. All governments possess the right to sup- 
press practices injurious to society, and to abate nuisances.* 

If a particular manufactory is found to be deleterious to the 
health of a city, it is not only the right, but the duty of the civil 
authority, to suppress it. If the national interests require an 
embargo, the measure is adopted, although it virtually wrests 
from the merchant his property, by depriving him of the use of 
his own ships. 

The State of New York abolished slavery without compen- 
sating the slave-holders. The same has been done in Mexico, 
and in various instances in South America ; and the compensa- 
tion given by Parliament to the West India proprietors, probably 
arose from the consideration that the legislators who enacted 
the abolition law, were not tlmnselves personally affected by it ; 
and in order, therefore, to avoid the reproach of indulging their 
benevolence at the expense of others, granted a pecuniary com- 
pensation to the owners of the emancipated slaves. 

To contend that the slaves in the Southern States ought not 
to be emancipated by law, except on the payment to their 
masters, of their market value, is to contend that slavery ought 

* " How little to be respected," exclaimed Lord Mulgrave, late Governor 
°t , ama ' ca > "i s tnat rigid regard for the rights of property, which says a man 
shall do what he likes with his own, when his oicn is his fellow-man." 

17* 



194 jay's works. 

to be perpetual. Such a payment is morally impossible. 
By whom can it be made ? The Federal Government have 
neither the will nor the constitutional power to make it. But 
admitting it possessed both, the appropriation of the national 
funds to this purpose would not be such a payment, because a 
very large proportion of those funds would be drawn from the 
slave-holders themselves ; and it would be an insulting mockery 
to offer to pay them with their own money. To suppose that 
the free States would be willing, from motives of disinterested 
benevolence, to make a present to their neighbors of a thou- 
sand millions of dollars* is obviously absurd : nor is it 
less absurd to insist that this sum ought to be paid to the masters 
by the Legislatures of the slave States ; since the pockets of the 
masters are the only sources whence those Legislatures could 
obtain the money. 

So far as the whole amount of wealth in the community 
is concerned, it would be enhanced, not diminished by emanci- 
pation. This may seem a strange assertion to follow the esti- 
mate we have just made of the market value of the slave 
population. But what is the price paid for a slave ? Nothing 
more than the amount of his wages for life, paid in advance; 
paid, it is true, to another, but still paid as an equivalent for 
labor to be performed, and to be refunded with interest out of 
that labor. Now it is obvious that it is the product of this labor 
which can alone add anything to the aggregate wealth; and 
that no diminution of that wealth can be caused by paying for 
the labor as it is performed, monthly, or yearly, instead of paying 
for the whole of it in advance. 

This argument, it may be said, applies only to the purchase 
and sale of slaves ; but that where a planter is already in pos- 
session of them, he would certainly lose a part of his profits 
by being compelled to pay him wages, and this loss would be 
so much deducted by emancipation from the general stock. 
The fallacy of this opinion may be perceived by recollecting 
that it can in no degree affect the national wealth, whether the 

* Estimating the slaves at an average value of $400, the amount would now 
nearly equal this sum, and in a few years far exceed it. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 195 

horse with which a farmer tills his corn-field was reared by 
himself or purchased from his neighbor. It is the corn produced, 
and not the money paid for the animal by one man and received 
by another, that augments the riches of the country. 

If the slaves are worth a thousand millions of dollars, it is 
evidence that their labor must be worth much more ; because to 
their price is to be added the cost of their maintenance, and the 
whole is to be reimbursed with profit out of their labor. Now 
colonization would utterly annihilate all this labor ; it calls upon 
the South to surrender a commodity Avorth more than a thousand 
millions ; and upon this surrender, which would convert the 
whole slave region into a wilderness, it rests all its hopes of the 
ultimate abolition of slavery ! 

Emancipation, on the contrary, instead of removing millions 
of laborers, would stimulate their industry, improve their morals, 
quicken their intelligence, and convert a dangerous, idle, and 
vicious population into wholesome citizens. Were all the slaves 
in South Carolina emancipated to-morrow, every branch of 
industry would derive new energy, and every species of property 
an increased value from the additional security which such a 
measure would give to society. All dread of insurrection would 
vanish, and one-half of the population, who are now regarded as 
implacable foes, would be converted into useful friends. 

But it is objected, that the emancipated blacks will form a 
bad population. One would think, from this objection, that the 
slaves now form a good population, and that they are to be ren- 
dered ignorant and immoral by freedom. Unquestionably, the 
liberated slaves, like all other vicious and degraded people, will, 
while such, form a bad population ; but if they are such while 
in bondage, and must ever remain such until liberated, then 
emancipation is the only process by which a bad can be con- 
verted into a good population. As soon as they are free, they 
will be accessible to education and religious instruction, and all 
those various motives which operate as a wholesome restraint on 
the evil passions of our nature. It would be most unjust to 
estimate the future character of the emancipated slaves, sup- 
posing slavery to be immediately abolished, by the present char- 



196 jay's avorks. 

acter of the free negroes. These last, in the slave States, are a 
hated and persecuted race. They are kept not only in ignorance, 
but in idleness. The planters will not employ them, for fear 
they will contaminate the slaves ; and the whole legislation of 
the Southern States towards .this people, is to degrade and 
brutify them. But these wicked efforts are the results of 
slavery, and would cease with it. Were slavery abolished, then 
it would be the obvious interest of the South to improve the 
black population, and the causes which necessarily render the 
free blacks vicious, would no longer operate. The same remark 
applies, although with less force, to the free blacks of the 
North. Colonization and slavery have both had their influence 
in keeping alive and aggravating the prejudices against color, 
and these prejudices have led to that system of persecution and 
oppression to which the free blacks here are subjected. 

And now what injury or loss would the planter sustain by the 
emancipation of his slaves ? As a trader in human flesh, his 
vocation would, indeed, be gone, but as the cultivator of the soil, 
his profits would be undiminished. The number of laborers would 
be as great as before ; and they would still be dependent on labor 
for their support. They now cost their owner their food and cloth- 
ing, and their maintenance in sickness, in youth, and in old age ; 
the expense also of the idle and worthless, is as great as that of 
the good. Their cost as free laborers would be but little more 
than at present, while their characters would be improved, and 
the employer could select such laborers as his occasions required. 
The laborers, finding their wages, and of course their comforts, 
depending on their good conduct, would be prompted to industry 
and sobriety ; and having nothing to gain by insurrection, and 
feeling no injuries to avenge, all malignant designs against their 
employers would be laid aside, and they would soon make such 
advances in intelligence and morality, as would contribute no 
less to the good order and peace of society, than to their own 
happiness. 

Abolitionists are constantly called on for a plan of emanci- 
pation. They have little encouragement to respond to the call. 
If they propose the simple plan of proclaiming by act of the 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 197 

State Legislatures, the immediate and unqualified abolition of 
slavery, they are denounced as reckless incendiaries. If they 
intimate that abolition does not necessarily inhibit all compul- 
sory labor, and point to the rural code of St. Domingo and the 
apprentice system of the West Indies, they are reproached with 
wishing to substitute one kind of slavery for another. But, 
in truth, they are under no obligation of duty or policy to pro- 
pose any specific plan. No Temperance Society has felt itself 
bound, because it pronounced the traffic in ardent spirits to be 
sinful, to furnish venders with plans for employing their capitals 
in other occupations. 

The details of emancipation, and the various legal provisions 
proper to render it safe and convenient, arc not prescribed by 
the great principles of justice and religion, but by considerations 
of local policy. It is not probable that if all the Southern 
Legislatures were sincerely anxious to abolish slavery, any two 
of them would do it in precisely the same manner, and under 
the same regulations. We have seen one plan pursued in St. 
Domingo, another in Bermuda and Antigua, a third in the 
other British West Indies, and still different plans in South 
America. 

Of all these plans, that adopted in Mexico, Bermuda and 
Antigua, of immediate, total and unqualified emancipation, will, 
here is reason to believe, be found in all cases the most safe 
wid expedient. 

This plan removes from the slave all cause for discontent* 
He is free, and his own master, and he can ask for no more, 
fet he is, in fact, for a time, absolutely dependent on his late 
>wner. He can look to no other person for food to eat, clothes 
o put on, or house to shelter him. His first wish therefore is, 
|o remain where he is, and he receives as a favor, permission to 
; abor in the service of him whom the day before he regarded as 
,iis oppressor. But labor is no longer the badge of his servi- 
tude, and the consummation of his misery ; it is the evidence of 
lis liberty, for it is voluntary. For the first time in his life, he 
'} a party to a contract. He negotiates with his late master, 
nd returns to the scene of his former toil, and the scene of his 



198 jay's works. 

stripes and his tears, with a joyful heart, to labor for himself. 
The wages he has agreed to accept, will, in fact, be little more 
than the° value of his maintenance ; for it is not to be expected, 
that in a treaty with his employer his diplomacy will gain for 
him any signal advantages ; but still there will be a charm in 
the very name of wages which will make the pittance he receives 
appear a treasure in his eyes. Thus will the transition from 
slave to free labor be effected instantaneously, and with scarcely 
any perceptible interruption of the ordinary pursuits of life. In 
the course of time, the value of negro labor, like all other ven- 
dible commodities, will be regulated by the supply and demand, 
and justice be done both to the planter and his laborers. The 
very consciousness, moreover, that justice is done to both parties, 
will remove their mutual suspicions and animosities, and substi- 
tute in their place feelings of kindness and confidence. No 
white man in Antigua, surrounded as he is by blacks, now 
dreams of insurrection, or fears the midnight assassin. Can as 
much be said of our Southern planters ? 

In concluding this chapter, we beg leave to address the fol- 
lowing questions to the reader, and we beseech him seriously to 
inquire what duties are prompted by the answers which his con- 
science and understanding may compel him to return. 

Do you believe it to be agreeable to the will of God, and the 
welfare of our country, that slavery should be perpetual? 

Is it either possible or probable that slavery can or will be 
removed by colonization ? 

If slavery be not abolished by law, is it not probable that it 
will, in time, be terminated by violence ? 

Do the precepts of Christianity and the lessons of history 
recommend gradual, in preference to immediate emancipation n 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 199 



CHAPTER XI. 

DANGER OF CONTINUED SLAVERY. 

While slave-holders and colonizationists delight to expatiate 
on the danger of immediate emancipation, and to represent its 
advocates as reckless incendiaries, ready to deluge the country 
in blood, they seem scarcely conscious that any danger is to be 
apprehended from slavery itself. Yet the whole history of sla- 
i very is a history of the struggles of the oppressed to recover 
I their liberty. The Romans had their servile wars, in one of 
which forty thousand slaves were embodied in arms, Italy rav- 
aged, and Rome herself menaced. 

A European writer remarks : 

" The formidable rebellion of the Jamaica slaves, in 1762, is well 
j known ; and in almost every island in the Archipelago, have repeated 
insurrections broken out ; sometimes the result of plans laid with the 
utmost secrecy, and very widely extended, always accompanied by the 
horrors of African warfare." 

The destruction of property in Jamaica, in the insurrection 
of 1832, was estimated by the Legislature at £1,154,583. Any 
commotion of the emancipated slaves, that should cost the island 
one-hundredth part of this sum, would be hailed both there and 
here, as demonstrative of the folly and hazard of emancipation. 

And have we not in our own country had melancholy, heart- 
rending proofs of the danger of slavery ? 

In 1712 and 1741, negro insurrections occurred in New York, 
land we may judge of the alarm they excited, by the shocking 
pieans used to prevent their recurrence. Of the leaders of the 
ilast insurrection, thirteen were burned alive, eighteen hung, and 
eighty transported. In the single State of South Carolina, there 
( iave been no less than seven insurrections designed or executed. 
fn 1711, the House of Assembly complained of certain fugitive 
daves, who " keep out armed, and robbing and plundering 
|iouses and plantations, and putting the inhabitants of this prov- 
ince in great fear and terror." In 1730, an open rebellion 



200 jay's works. 

occurred, in which the negroes were actually armed and embodied. 
In 1739, there were no less than three rebellions, as appears from 
a petition from the Council and Assembly to the king, in which 
they complain of an " insurrection of our slaves, in which many of 
the inhabitants were murdered in a barbarous and cruel manner ; 
and thatjwas no sooner quelled, than another was projected in 
Charleston, and a third lately in the very heart of the settle- 
ment, but happily discovered time enough to be prevented." 
In 1816, there was a conspiracy of the slaves in Camden and its 
vicinity, " the professed design of which was to murder all the 
whites and free themselves." The conspiracy in Charleston in 
1822, and the sacrifice of human life to which it led, are well 
known. But in no instance has the danger of slavery been so 
vividly illustrated as in the tragedy of Southampton. 

A fanatic slave conceived, from some supposed signs in the 
heavens or peculiarity in the weather, that he was called by 
God to destroy the whites. He communicated his commission 
to five other slaves, who engaged to aid him in executing it. 

The conspirators agreed to meet at a certain place on the 
night of the 21st of August, 1831. They assembled at the 
appointed hour, and the leader, Nat Turner, beheld with surprise 
a sixth man, who had not been invited by him to join the enter- 
prise, but who had learned from another source the cause of the 
meeting ; and on inquiring for what purpose he had come, re- 
ceived the remarkable answer, — " My life is worth no more 
than that of others, and my liberty is dear to me." With these 
six associates, Turner commenced the work of destruction. By 
sunrise, the number of murderers was swelled to fourteen, and 
by ten o'clock the same morning, to forty ! 

From the testimony given on the trial of Turner, and which 
has been published, it appears that there was no previous con- 
ceit, except between Turner and his six original associates, and 
that no white or free colored man was privy to their design. 

The dates we have given of the various insurrections, prove 
conclusively that they were in no degree connected with discus- 
sions respecting abolition ; and at the time of the Southampton 
massacre, there was no Anti-Slavery Society in the United 
States advocating immediate emancipation. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 201 

Abolitionists have been often charged with a desire to foment 
insurrections ; but the charge is wholly gratuitous, and no proof 
whatever of such sublimated wickedness has ever been adduced 
against them. On the contrary, their characters, professions 
and conduct repel the calumny. The whole history of abolition 
shows that its only tendency is to insure peace and safety. 

We have brought facts to establish the danger of slavery ; let 
us now attend to the confessions of slave-holders to the same 
point. A South Carolina writer, while urging the necessity of 
a stricter police over the slaves, thus describes them : 

" Let it never be forgotten, that our negroes are truly the Jacobius 
of the country ; that they are the anarchists, and the domestic enemy ; 

THE COMMON ENEMY OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY, AND THE BARBA- 
RIANS WHO WOULD IF THEY COULD BECOME THE DESTROYERS OF 
OUR RACE." * 

The Southern Religious Telegraph says : 

" Hatred to the whites, with the exception in some cases of attach- 
ment to the person and family of the master, is nearly universal among 
the black population. We have then a foe cherished in our very 
bosoms — a foe willing to draw our life-blood, whenever the 
opportunity is offered, and, in the mean time, intent on doing us all 
the mischief in his power." 

Now, be it recollected that these " destroyers of our race," 
these foes, willing " to draw the life-blood " of the whites, are 
rapidly advancing to an immense numerical majority. And on 
what grounds do the whites rest their hopes of security from 
these Jacobins and anarchists, — on equal laws, the diffusion of 
education, and the influence of religion ? Let Governor Haynes 
of South Carolina, answer the question. 

" A state of military preparation must always be with us a 
state of perfect domestic security. A profound peace, and consequent 
i apathy, may expose us to the danger of domestic insurrection." Mes- 
sage to the Legislature, 1833. 

I Thus, profound peace, which is a blessing to all other people, 
' will be a curse to the slave-holders, and they are to hold all that 
is dear to them by the tenure of military preparation ! 

* A refutation of the "calumnies inculcated against the Southern and 
Western States. Charleston, 1822. 
18 



202 jay's works. 

Is it, we ask, possible, for any nation to have a worse popu- 
lation than that described in the preceding extracts, or to be 
doomed to a more deplorable fate than that of perpetual military 
preparation ? 

"We have now seen what are the religious and political prin- 
ciples, and what are the historical facts which lead the American 
Anti-Savery Society to recommend immediate emancipation to 
their Southern brethren. 

But it is demanded, with an air of supercilious triumph, what 
have Northern men to do with slavery, and what right have they 
to interfere with the domestic institutions of the South ? And 
is this question addressed to the followers of Him who com- 
manded his disciples to " go into all the world, and to preach the 
Gospel to every creature ? " As well might it be asked of the 
Christians of America, what they have to do with the religion 
of Brahma, — what right they have to interfere to rescue the 
widow from the burning pile, or the devotee from the wheels of 
Juggernaut. Christians are no less bound by the injunction to 
" do good unto all men," to endeavor, by lawful means, to break 
the fetters of the slave, than "to deliver the victim of Pagan 
superstition. The obligation is imperative, and they who duly 
respect its authority, will not be deterred by violence or denun- 
ciation from obeying its monitions. The same moral sense 
which has led abolitionists to oppose slavery, will, we trust, for- 
ever lead them to repudiate in their practice the detestable doc- 
trine that the end sanctifies the means. The means they 
employ, except in relation to slavery under the authority of 
Congress, are wholly confined to arguments addressed to the 
conscience and understanding; and intended only to excite the 
voluntary action of the masters. With them, and with them 
alone, rests the power of deciding on the coux-se they will pur- 
sue. But let them ponder well the consequences to themselves 
and their posterity, of their momentous decision. 

By rejecting abolition, they reject all the rich and varied 
blessings in morals, in security, in political power and wealth 
which it offers to their acceptance. And what do they retain ? — ■ 
the licentiousness, cruelty, and injustice ; the depression of enter- 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 203 

prise, the wasting of strength, the fearful forehodings, the hourly 
jeopardy, the frowns of puhlic opinion, and the reproaches of 
conscience, which are and must be the inseparable attendants on 
slavery. Before they refuse to retreat from the volcano on 
which they are standing, let them look into the terrific crater 
which yawns beneath them. 

If slavery is to be perpetual, it will be well to estimate, not 
only the number of slaves with which our Southern country is 
to be peopled, but also the ratio they are to bear to their masters. 
It must be recollected that all those moral checks on population 
which arise from religion, the refinements of civilized life, and 
the difficulty of sustaining a family, are wanting to the slave. 
Hence there is always a tendency to a far more rapid multipli- 
cation in a slave than a free population. Certain circumstances 
may indeed check this tendency, but experience proves that in this 
country they exist to a very slight extent, if at all. Our slaves 
are increasing in a constantly accelerated ratio. In the ten 
years from 1840 to 1850, judging from the result of the last 
census, the increase will be 1,049,275, a number greater than 
all the slaves just liberated in the West Indies ! The next ten 
years, a still greater number will be added, and so on indefinitely. 
In the mean time, new and powerful checks will be operating to 
retard the progress of the white population. The evils attend- 
ant on slavery will offer strong inducements to the young and 
indigent to forsake the land of their fathers, and to seek a safer 
home, and a wider field for enterprise. Virginia affords a striking 
illustration of this remark. The domestic slave-trade annually 
relieves that State of more than six thousand slaves, and yet, 
notwithstanding this drain, they continue to increase. 

In 1830, the colored population in the counties east of the 
Blue Ridge, exceeded the white by 81,078, whereas, forty years 
before, in the same counties, the whites had a majority of 
25,098. 

The number of slaves must at length reach the point of prof- 
itable employment, after which, each additional one becomes an 
incumbrance. Soon after this jxfint is reached, the traffic in 
slaves must cease, and the owners will be unable to dispose of 



204 jay's works. 

their superfluous hands. The consequence will be the gradual 
impoverishment of the proprietors. As the slaves increase in 
number, and diminish in value, their masters will gradually 
become less interested in their welfare, and more apprehensive 
of their physical strength. Fear is a cruel passion, and espe- 
cially as it silences the remonstrances of conscience by the plea 
of self-preservation. As the danger becomes more pressing, the 
precautions of the master will become more and more rigorous : 
every slave being regarded and treated as an enemy, will, in fact, 
become one ; and every increase of cruelty will but hasten the 
final catastrophe. 

In the mean time, slavery will have ceased in every other 
part of the civilized world. In Brazil, it will probably receive 
its death-blow in the first popular revolution. In the Danish 
Islands, it will expire in two years; and in the French and 
Spanish colonies, it cannot long survive.* And when this 
loathsome leprosy shall alone cling to the republicans of our 
Southern and Western States, in what light will they, must 
they, be regarded by the rest of the human race ? This is an 
age in which public opinion has snatched the sceptre from kings 
and senates, and reigns an imperious and absolute despot. She 
may, indeed, be influenced, but not resisted. She called for the 
abolition of the African slave-trade, and the traffickers in human 
flesh, for centuries encouraged and protected by law, became a 
proscribed race. She is now calling for the freedom of the 
slave, and his shackles are falling from him. Emancipation will 
soon become the common cause of Christendom, as the abolition 
of the slave-trade was a few years since. 

In 1822, the House of Representatives requested the Presi- 
dent to enter into negotiations with the several maritime powers, 
for the effectual suppression of the slave-trade, and its ultimate 
denunciation as piracy ; and negotiations were accordingly 
opened on this subject with Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, 
Russia, France, the Netherlands, Buenos Ayres and Colombia. 

* The voluntary manumissions in the French Colonies from 1st of January, 
1831, to 1st of June, 1833, were 21,962. Since the late Abolition Act of Great 
Britain, an Anti-Slavery Society has been organized in Paris, with the Due 
de Broglie at its head. It is said to have " derived its existence in the very 
bosom of the Chamber of Deputies." 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 205 

In 1821, Portugal persisting in the traffic, the British House 
of Commons called upon the king, to endeavor, hy negotiation, 
to prevail on the powers of Europe to exclude from their ports 
the produce of the Portuguese Colonies. Portugal yielded, and 
the trade has been renounced by every Christian nation in 
Europe and America. And may not the same, or similar means, 
be adopted by other nations to put an end to American slavery ? 
It is by no means improbable, that before many years elapse,* 
laws will be passed, and treaties made, for excluding the pro- 
ducts of slave-labor from Europe. 

So long ago as 1806, Mr. Windham, in the House of Com- 
mons, " did not hesitate to say, that when the proper time arrived, 
and the consent of other powers could be obtained for its abolition, 
slavery ought not to be suffered to exist among the institutions 
of any civilized State." 

The emperor of Austria has issued a decree, declaring — 
" Every man, by the right of nature, sanctioned by reason, must 
be considered a free person. Every slave becomes free from 
the moment he touches the Austrian soil, or an Austrian ship." 

The Edinburgh Review insists, that " the existence of sla- 
very in America is an atrocious crime, with which no means can 
be kept." 

Mr. Buckingham, member of Parliament, lately asserted at a 
public meeting : " The greater proportion of the people of Eng- 
land demand not merely emancipation, but the immediate eman- 
cipation of the slaves, in whatever quarter of the world they may 
be found." 

Daniel O'Connell, shortly before the abolition of slavery in the 
British Dominions, declared in public, " The West Indies will 
be obliged to grant emancipation, and then we willtwa to Amer- 
ica, and to every part of Europe, and require emancipation? 

A society has just been formed in England, entitled, "the 
British and Foreign Society for the universal abolition of negro 
slavery and the slave-trade." 

* A statement has recently been laid before the British Parliament of the 
amount of such produce of American slave-labor imported into Great Britain 
as enters into competition with the productions of the West Indies. 

18* 



206 jay's works. 

Our pride may revolt at the idea of foreign interference, but 
it will be the interference not of force, but of public opinion, 
against which our fleets and armies will be of no avail. 

We cannot compel other countries to buy our cotton and 
sugar, or to admit our citizens from the South, when they visit 
Europe, to the usual courtesies of social intercourse. " When 
an American comes into society," says Daniel O'Connell, in a 
numerous assembly, " he will be asked, ' Are you one of the 
thieves, or are you an honest man ? If you are an honest man, 
then you have given liberty to your slaves ; if you are among 
the thieves, the sooner you take the outside of the house the 
better.' " 

The very coarseness of this invective in the mouth of the 
great agitator, indicates the temper of the British population 
on this subject ; a temper which, fostered as it is by the progress 
of liberal principles, will, in time, become the temper of all 
Europe, and, indeed, of all the world. While the slave-holders 
are suffering, without sympathy and without redress, from the 
harassing influence of this temper, their slaves will be multiply- 
ing with a fearful rapidity, and becoming each day more conscious 
of their own strength ; and unless their fetters are loosened, they 
will inevitably be burst. 

Our Southern brethren are the masters of their own destiny ; 
may a gracious God lead them to know the things which belong 
to their peace, before they be forever hidden from their eyes. 



A VIEW OF THE ACTION 

OF THE 

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, 

IN 

BEHALF OF SLAVERY. 



"We, the People of the United States, do ordain and establish 
this Constitution." — Federal Constitution. 



INTRODUCTION 



TO SECOND EDITION. 



The rapid sale of the first edition of this work, and the almost im- 
mediate call for another, afford gratifying evidence of the awakening 
attention of the public to the action of the Federal Government in 
behalf of slavery. That action is so iniquitous in itself, and so dangerous 
in its consequences to the liberties of the country, that it needs only to 
be fully known, to be restrained by the patriotism and moral sense of 
the community, within the limits prescribed by the Constitution and 
the obvious principles of humanity and justice. It is not easy, however, 
to enlighten those who prefer darkness to light ; nor to persuade men 
fc> act in opposition to their supposed pecuniary or political interests. 
But there can be no triumph where there is no struggle — that religion 
is worthless, which cooperates with human depravity ; and that patriot- 
ism an empty name, which only echoes the shout of the multitude. 

If the friends of human liberty have in this country much to cover 
them with grief and shame, they have also much to stimulate their 
exertions, and much to assure them of ultimate success. Their own 
rights — the virtue, happiiness and liberty of their descendants — the 
honor, prosperity and freedom of their country, are all involved in the 
issue. Slavery is a perfidious, encroaching enemy, that must either 
conquer or be conquered. Let the warfare now waged against it be 
succeeded by a peace, and soon Texas, the Valley of the Mississippi, 
and in tune even the Atlantic States would be added to its dominions. 
Every dictate, therefore, of patriotism or religion, of personal interest, 
of paternal affection, unites in urging us to use all lawful means to stay 
the progress of the destroyer, and to teach our children after us to 
continue the contest. 

But is not the struggle hopeless, and ought we not to sit down in 
utter despair at the prospect of desolation, misery and disgrace with 
which our country is threatened ? So we are advised by high authority ; 
public opinion, we are told, is against us. Indeed ! and is it not also 
against every defeated candidate for office, and every losing political 
party? But who hears our baffled politicians advising submission to 
the victors because public opinion is against the vanquished ? Public 
opinion is a mighty agent for good or for evil ; but it is as fickle as it 



210 INTRODUCTION. 

is powerful. It strewed the path of the Redeemer with palm branches, 
and afterwards nailed him to the cross. 

For ages it guarded and preserved all the oppressions and cruelties 
of the feudal system ; it is now gradually, but surely destroying its 
every vestige. But a few years since, public opinion not merely 
sanctioned, but actually required the use of intoxicating liquors ; it is 
now their potent enemy. 

But perhaps the most extraordinary change this mighty agent has 
undergone, is in relation to slavery itself; and the friends of emanci- 
pation will find in the history of this transformation one of their most 
powerful inducements to perseverance. 

For more than two hundred years before its abolition, had the 
African slave-trade been pursued by Christian nations, under the fos- 
tering protection of their rulers. No difference of religious faith, of 
government, or of climate, offered any check to this accursed commerce. 
Catholics and Protestants, the subjects of monarchs and the citizens 
of republics, natives of the north and of the south, alike thirsted for the 
price of blood, alike participated in robbery and murder. In 1774, 
the British cabinet refused its assent to the imposition, by the colonial 
legislatures, of duties on the importation of slaves. " We cannot," said 
the Secretary, Lord Dartmouth, " allow the colonies to check or dis- 
courage in any degree a traffic so beneficial to the nation ! " 

The feelings of humanity and the powers of conscience were on this 
subject almost universally and totally paralyzed. So late as 1 783, in 
the trial of a civil cause in London, it appeared in evidence, that one 
hundred and thirty-two Africans had been thrown into the sea by the 
captain of a slaver to defraud the underwriters. Minutes of the evi- 
dence were submitted to the government ; but the victims were only 
negroes, and their murderer was unmolested. 

In 1786, the number of unhappy beings annually torn from Africa 
was estimated at 100,000. Of these, it was admitted at least 20,000 
perished on the voyage ; and of those who survived to enter a state of 
hopeless bondage, 20,000 more, exhausted by suffering and despair, 
sunk into the grave within two years. 

Individuals were occasionally found who protested against the traffic, 
but their voices were unheeded. For two centuries not a word in rep- 
robation of the trade had been uttered within the walls of the British 
senate. This long silence was first broken by Mr. David Hartley, who 
in 1776 moved in the House of Commons, that the slave-trade was 
" contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man." But the moral 
sense of Great Britain, and indeed of the world, was then too obtuse to 
recognize these simple and now obvious truths ; and the resolution was 
promptly rejected. Seven years after, a petition against the trade, the 
first ever offered, was presented by the Quaker Society to the House 
of Commons. But that body did not even condescend to consider it — 
the Premier, Lord North, coolly observing, that the traiHc had, in a 
commercial view, become necessary to almost every nation in Europe.^ 

On the 7th of July, 1783, shortly after this official declaration, SIX 
Quakers* met in London " to consider what steps they should take for 

* William Dillwyn, George Harrison, Samuel Hoare, Thomas Knowles, 
John Lloyd, and Joseph Woods. Their names are registered in heaven, 
let them not be forgotten on earth. 



INTRODUCTION. 211 

THE RELIEF AND LIBERATION OF THE NEGRO SLAVES IN THE WEST 

Indies, and for the discouragement of the slave-trade on 

THE COAST OF AFRICA." 

When we reflect on the peculiar circumstances under which these 
men assembled, we cannot but regard their meeting as one of the 
sublimest instances of Christian faith unrecorded in the sacred vol- 
ume, — a faith which, according to the promise, was effectual in remov- 
ing mountains. At the moment of their meeting, the maritime powers 
of Europe were actively engaged in the trade, — a trade against which 
no petition had ever been presented, except from the very sect to 
which they belonged, and which had, within a few days, like certain 
petitions in modern times, been ordered to " lie on the table." They 
had, moreover, just witnessed the impunity of the wretch who had 
deliberately drowned one hundred and thirty-two of his fellow-men, — 
an impunity which warned them of the utter insensibility of the public 
to the sufferings of the miserable negroes. 

And who were these six men wlio under such circumstances pre- 
sumed to attempt the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade — who 
aspired to move the moral world — to arrest the commerce of nations — 
to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison doors 
to them that were bound ? Did they sway the councils, or lead the 
armies of empires ? — were they possessed of learning to command the 
attention of the wise and great, or of eloquence to mould at their will 
the passions of multitudes ? They were humble and obscure individu- 
als, belonging to a small and despised sect, and precluded by their 
religious tenets and social condition from all political influence. But 
they discovered from the Book of God, what had escaped many wise 
and good men, that the trade in question was opposed alike to the 
attributes and the precepts of the Almighty Ruler of nations. 

In laboring, therefore, for its suppression, they were assured of his 
approbation ; and without regarding their own weakness, or the obsta- 
cles before them, they proceeded steadily in the path of duty, leaving 
the result to HIM with whom all things are possible. 

They determined to hold frequent meetings, of which regular min- 
utes were kept. Their first object was to enlighten and purify the 
public mind, and for this purpose they entered into negotiations with 
the proprietors of various newspapers, and secured a space in their 
columns for such articles respecting the trade as they might choose 
to insert. They likewise circulated books and pamphlets on the 
subject. The seeds thus scattered germinated slowly, but ultimately 
yielded a glorious harvest. Within two years a second petition was 
presented, and like the first was treated with neglect. The third year, 
the six associates, with the aid of some friends, engaged the celebrated 
; Clarkson as their agent ; and so successful were his labors in exciting 
the sensibilities of the British public, that it was found expedient to 
I divest the enterprise of its sectarian character, and the committee added 
'six to their number from other denominations. This new committee 
soon became an important body, receiving and appropriating the 
pecuniary contributions to the cause, and directing and cheering the 
labors of its advocates. Gradually, members of Parliament, dignitaries 
of the church, and political leaders subscribed to the funds of the com- 
mittee, and avowed their hostility to the trade. 



212 INTRODUCTION. 

Petitions were multiplied, and the government so far condescended 
to notice the rising excitement, as to appoint a commission to inquire 
into the alleged atrocities of this branch of the British commerce. On 
the 9th of May, 1 788, only five years after the first meeting of the 
committee, the House of Commons voted that they would at the next 
session take into consideration the complaints against the African slave- 
trade. 

It is unnecessary for our purpose to pursue the details of this instruc- 
tive history. It has already taught us the possibility of rousing the 
public attention, however lethargic, by appeals to the conscience and 
understanding, and the influence which Christian zeal and faith, unaided 
by wealth and power, are capable of exerting. The few remaining 
facts we shall notice convey the important lesson, that no cause, how- 
ever pure, no truth, however obvious, can shield their advocates from 
obloquy, when prejudice and selfishness find it expedient to assail 
them ; and also, that constancy in maintaining and inculcating the great 
principles of justice and humanity will finally be crowned with success. 

No sooner did a parliamentary inquiry threaten to expose the abom- 
inations and endanger the continuance of the traffic, than its advocates, 
reckless alike of truth and decency, vindicated its policy, and attacked 
with vindictive fury those who were laboring to destroy it. Abolition 
was denounced in Parliament as " hypocritical, fanatic, and methodis- 
tical." It would lead, it was asserted, to " insurrection, massacre and 
ruin in the colonies; and in Great Britain, to the reduction of her 
revenue, the decay of her naval strength, and the bankruptcy of her 
merchants and manufactures." The trade was justified by the press, 
and even ministers of religion stepped forth to vindicate it on scriptural 
authority.* In 1791, a bill was brought in for the suppression of the 
trade. The opposition to it was malignant and successful. The measure 
was pronounced fit only for the bigotry of the twelfth century. Lord 
John Russell termed it " visionary and delusive, a feeble attempt to 
serve the cause of humanity, as other nations would pursue the trade 
if abolished by Great Britain." Mr. Stanley insisted that it was the 
intention of Providence, from the beginning, that one set of men should 
be slaves to another ; and he complained that the trade had been con- 
demned from the pulpit ! 

The friends of abolition were ridiculed by Lord Chancellor Thurlow 
from the woolsack ; and the Duke of Clarence, who afterwards, as 
William the Fourth, gave his assent to the bill abolishing slavery 
throughout his dominions, regardless of parliamentary decorum, de- 
clared, in his place in the House of Lords, that the abolitionists were 
hypocrites and fanatics ; and in the application of these epithets 
included Mr. Wilberforce by name. 

Ten times did Mr. Wilberforce, in the House of Commons, endeavor 
to procure the suppression of the traffic, and ten times was he doomed 
to defeat. So late as 1807, Lord Castlereagh, in the British senate, 

* As illustrative of public opinion at this time, we give the titles of two 
pamphlets published in London in 1788, viz. : " Slavery no Oppresion," 
and " Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the Slave-Trade, and shoiv- 
ingits conformity with the principles of natural and revealed religion, deline- 
ated in the writings of the word of God." By the Rev. R. Harris. 



INTRODUCTION. 213 

vindicated the trade on scriptural grounds, and avowed that, in his 
opinion, the advantages resulting from it were so great, that were it not 
now existing, the trade ought forthwith to be established. But the 
triumph of justice and the reward of faith and perseverance were nigh 
at hand. On the 25th of March, 1807, twenty-four years after the 
formation of the Quaker committee, the slave-trade was abolished by 
act of Parliament. 

Splendid and glorious as was this triumph, it was incomplete while 
shared by Great Britain alone. The whole of Christendom was yet 
to be brought to abjure a commerce condemned alike by reason and 
revelation. A long course of negotiation ensued, and treaty after 
treaty was made for the abandonment of the traffic, until, in 1830, 
every Christian nation in Europe and America had prohibited it. 

The Quaker committee, as we have seen, proposed, in 1783, not 
merely the discouragement of the African slave-trade, but also " the 
liberation of negro slaves in the West Indies." The struggle for this 
last object was continued after the accomplishment of the former for 
thirty-one years; when, on the 4th of August, 1838, negro slavery 
Avholly ceased throughout the British West Indies, and every legal 
disability, founded on color, was utterly abolished. 

Thus has been accomplished the most astonishing revolution in 
opinion and practice the world has ever witnessed, with the exception 
of the establishment of Christianity. And let it be remembered, that 
this revolution was effected solely by the exhibition of truth, and by 
bold and persevering appeals to the conscience and understanding of 
mankind. No miracles have wrought conviction, no force has subdued 
opposition. Public opinion was gradually enlightened and converted, 
and then roused into action, and with resistless energy it smote to the 
earth a stupendous system of wickedness and cruelty. 

Surely we may learn from this history a very different lesson from 
that which many of our politicians and moralists are fond of inculcating, 
that because public opinion is against them, therefore abolitionists should 
cease to do well, and learn to do evil — should abandon their opposition 
to slavery and acquiesce in popular iniquity. Let us take the six 
Quakers for our example, and resolve to persevere, while life shall be 
spared, in our assaults upon slavery, not inquiring how many are 
against us, knowing assuredly that God is for us. But should the advo- 
cates of emancipation, in some moment of weakness or of trial, be 
tempted to cast a desponding and inquiring glance over the field of 
battle, and to recall to his recollection the events of the campaign, he 
will see nothing in the array of hostile forces to damp his courage, nor 
I in the review of the past to lower his confidence of victory. 

The great object proposed by the friends of human liberty, so far as 
• relates to the Federal Government, is the abolition of slavery within 
'its " exclusive jurisdiction." But we have been given to understand,* 
j that " the immediate abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia 
is utterly impracticable." That the present administration do not choose 
to abolish it, is not more true than that the British Parliament of 1 783 did 
■ not choose to abolish the slave-trade ; and it is equally true that the 

* Public letter of John Quincy Adams of 25th May, 1839. 
19 



214 INTRODUCTION. 

abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia is now far more prob- 
able and practicable than was that of the slave-trade and West India 
slavery at the formation of the Quaker committee. But "why is the 
immediate abolition of slavery in the District utterly impracticable ? 
" Because public opinion throughout the Union is against it." This is 
a good reason for predicting that the next Congress will not grant 
abolition, but not why the friends of abolition should cease their efforts 
to change public opinion, in order that a future Congress may grant 
what we know the next will refuse. 

In many respects the abolitionists of the present day are placed in 
circumstances similar to those in which their predecessors found them- 
selves in 1783. They, like us, had to contend with the hostility of the 
Government, with the interests and prejudices of slave-holders in the 
Legislature, * with clerical defenders of cruelty and oppression, with 
mercantile cupidity, and with heartless politicians. But in many other 
respects they were less favored than we are. They were struggling 
ayainst the spirit of the age ; we are cooperating with it. They were 
advancing untried theories ; we can point to the West Indies and 
South America for the practical and successful operation of our doc- 
trines. They were striving to influence a government in a great degree 
independent of the people ; we are petitioning a government that is 
the mere creature of the popular will. They were few and despised ; 
the hatred and persecution we have experienced attest the importance 
attributed to us. They were without political influence ; where suffrage 
is universal, 300,000 petitioners will not be overlooked by politicians. 
They could bring their facts and arguments before the public only by 
hiring a space in the columns of a few newspapers ; we have numerous 
periodicals, many of them of the largest size, exclusively devoted to 
the propagation of our opinions, while many religious and political 
journals are aiding us in exhibiting the evils of slavery and the advan- 
tages of emancipation. They were cheered by no official sanction of 
their efforts ; we are encouraged and stimulated, in many instances, by 
the approving voice of the representatives of the people. 

We ask Congress to abolish slavery in the District; is the prayer 
presumptuous or unconstitutional ? If so, it becomes not the House 
of Representatives to rebuke us ; for, on the 9th of January, 1829, that 
body " Resolved that the Committee on the District of Columbia be 
instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing by law for the 
gradual abolition of slavery within the District, in such manner that 
the interests of no individual shall be injured thereby." Here we have 
the solemn admission of the popular and most numerous branch of the 
Legislalure, that the question of abolition is one of expediency alone, 
and not of constitutional power ; and that slavery may be terminated 
by law, without injury to any individual. And what sentiments on 
this subject have been uttered by the State Legislatures ? In 1828 the 
Legislature of Pexxsylvaxia instructed their members of Congress 
" to procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in 

* Many of the Commoners and Lords were deeply interested in West In- 
dian plantations ; and a large estate, well stocked with slaves, was held by a 
chartered Society, of the established Church. 



INTRODUCTION. 215 

the District of Columbia." In 1829, the Assembly of New York 
voted to direct the representatives from that State " to make every 
proper exertion to effect the passage of a law for the abolition of sla- 
very in the District of Columbia." In 1837, the Senate of Massa- 
chusetts " Resolved that Congress, having exclusive legislation in 
the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery and the 
slave-trade therein, and that the early exercise of such right is de- 
manded by the enlightened sentiment of the civilized world, by the 
principles of the Revolution, and by humanity." The other House, the 
same session, " Resolved that Congress, having exclusive legislation in 
the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish slavery in said 
District, and that its exercise should only be restrained by a regard to 
the public good." The next session both branches of the Legislature 
resolved " That the rights of justice, the claims of humanity, and the 
common good alike demand the entire suppression of the slave-trade 
now carried on in the District of Columbia." In 1838, the House of 
Representatives of the Legislature of Maine " Resolved that the con- 
tinuance of slavery within the sacred enclosure and chosen seat of the 
National Government is inconsistent with a due regard to the enlight- 
ened judgment of mankind, and with all just pretensions on our part 
to the character of a free people, and is adapted to bring into contempt 
republican liberty, and render its influence powerless throughout the 
world." The same year the Legislature of Vermont, without a dis- 
senting voice, instructed the Representatives in Congress " to use their 
utmost efforts to procure the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade 
in the District of Columbia." Yet there are those who would fain 
paralyze all our efforts by the assurance that public opinion is against 
us ! 

But we are urged to desist, not only because our object is impracti- 
cable, but also because it is unlawful. " When the people," we are 
told, " are bound by laws emanating from a legislative assembly wherein 
they have no representatives, their will must be ascertained by mani- 
festations from themselves." But why ought Congress to ascertain the 
will of the people of the District ? Because " the Declaration of In- 
dependence derives all just powers of the Government from the con- 
sent of the governed." But are laws binding only on such as approve 
of them ? No. " When the people are represented in the legislative 
assembly, the consent of the ivlwle must be inferred from the voice of 
the representative majority." Now it so happens that the whole peo- 
ple of the United States, by the voice of the representative majority, 
assented to the provision of the Constitution, that a district, ten miles 
square, should be placed under the absolute and exclusive jurisdiction 
of Congress. To this arrangement the people inhabiting the present 
: District gave their assent through their representatives. Afterwards, 
when they themselves were set off, by the Legislatures of Virginia and 
.Maryland, to be the subjects of this exclusive jurisdiction, they, through 
their representatives in the Legislatures, consented to be thus placed 
under the authority of Congress. And shall we now be gravely told, 
'after these people have thus consented to be governed, in all cases 
: whatsoever, by the National Legislature, and after the people of the 
United States have, for this purpose, vested unlimited and exclusive 



216 INTRODUCTION. 

jurisdiction in Congress, that it is contrary to the principles of the 
Declaration of Independence that this jurisdiction should secure to 
each inhabitant of the District the " inalienable rights of life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness ? " Again, if the Declaration derives 
the powers of the government from the consent of the governed, from 
what representative majority, we would ask, are we to infer the consent 
of six thousand of the people of the District to be reduced to chattels 
— to be robbed of the rights of humanity — to be converted, with 
their wives and children, into articles of merchandise ? 

Surely the friends of emancipation will not, after their past expe- 
rience, look upon public opinion as an invincible enemy — still less will 
they believe that the Declaration of Independence is the death-warrant 
of human rights in the national domain. The principles for which 
they are contending are the principles of the Declaration ; the means 
they are using are those given them by the Constitution — freedom of 
speech and of the press — petition and the elective franchise ; and, by 
the blessing of God on these principles and means, they will yet con- 
vert public opinion into an ally — will yet purge the capital of the 
Repubbc of its loathsome plague, and restore the Federal Government 
to its legitimate functions, of establishing justice and securing the bless- 
ings of liberty. 

Bedford, September, 1839. 



! 



A VIEW OF THE ACTION 



GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 



Our Fathers, in forming the Federal Constitution, entered 
into a guilty compromise on the subject of slavery, and heavily 
is their sin now visited upon their children. By that instru- 
ment, the continuance of the African slave-trade was guaranteed 
for twenty years ; — a larger proportional representation in Con- 
gress, and a larger vote in the election of the Executive, was 
accorded to the slave-holding, than to the other States : — the 
power of the nation Avas pledged to keep the slave in subjec- 
tion ; and should he ever escape from his fetters, his master was 
authorized to pursue and to seize him, in any and every of the 
sovereign States composing our wide-spread confederacy. 

We are not about to exhibit the corrupting influence of this 
compact on the religious sympathies and sentiments of our 
countrymen, in regard to slavery ; nor is it our present purpose 
to trace the retributive justice of Heaven in that recklessness 
'of human life, and in that contempt of human and divine obli- 
gations which are hurrying on the slave States to anarchy and 
barbarism ; or in the eagerness so generally exhibited by our 
northern politicians and merchants, to barter the constitutional 

19* 



218 jay's works. 

rights of themselves and their fellow-citizens, for the votes and 
the trade of the South.* 

We propose simply to take a view of the action of the Fed- 
eral Government in behalf of slavery, — a subject that has yet 
been but partially investigated ; and we flatter ourselves that in 
the course of our inquiries we shall develop facts which, with 
some at least of our readers, will possess the merit of novelty. 
These facts, for the most part, derive their origin from 

THE FEDERAL RATIO OF REPRESENTATION. 

The Constitution provides that the members of the Lower 
House of Congress shall be proportioned to the free inhabitants 
of the States they represent, except that in each State three-fifths 
of the slave population shall be for this purpose considered as free 
inhabitants. In other words, every five slaves are to be counted 
as three white persons. For example, if by law every 60,000 
free inhabitants may elect a representative, a district containing 
45,000 whites and 25,000 slaves, becomes by the federal ratio 
entitled to a member. This stipulation in the Constitution has from 
the beginning given the slave-holders an undue weight in the na- 
tional councils. A few instances will illustrate its practical effect. 
The whole number of the House of Representatives is at pre- 
sent 242 — sent from 2G States. Of these, the following are 
slave States, viz. : — Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, 

* Before this language is condemned as harsh and exaggerated, we beg the 
reader to recall some of the prominent events of the last few years, con- 
nected with this subject, — the Lynch clubs and cruel inflictions of the 
South — the sacking of the Charleston post-office — the wholesale and unpun- 
ished murders at Vicksburg — and the frequent burnings alive of negroes, 
and in particular of Mcintosh, taken by the citizens of St. Louis from the 
prison, chained to a tree, and consumed by a slow fire — and the advice of 
Judge Lawless to the Grand Jury, not to notice the diabolical atrocity, 
because it was, in fact, the act of the community ! As to the North, we 
point in our justification to the innumerable mobs excited by politicians 
against the friends of emancipation — the various attempts made by the State 
authorities to propitiate the South by a surrender of the freedom of speech 
and of the press — to the zeal of the merchants in our seaports in getting up 
anti-abolition meetings — to the conflagration of Pennsylvania Hall, and to 
the martyrdom of Lovejoy. In truth, our whole land is strowed with monu- 
ments of the wickedness and tyranny of slavery — monuments which declare, 
in no doubtful language, that our common national sin is not unheeded by 
Him to whom vengeance belongeth. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 219 

Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas. These States 
with a free population of 3,823,389, have 100 memhers ; while 
the free States, with a free population nearly double, viz., 7,003,- 
451, have only 142 members. One representative is at present 
allowed to 47,700 inhabitants. Now were the slaves omitted in 
the enumeration, the slave States would have only 75 members. 
Hence it follows, that at the present moment, the slave-holding 
interest has a representation of TWENTY-FIVE members in 
addition to the fair and equal representation of the free inhabi- 
tants. There is certainly no good reason why the owners of 
human chattels should, by the fundamental law of a Republic 
have greater privileges awarded to them than to the holders of 
any other kind of property whatever. But such is the compact ; 
we seek not to change or violate it, but only to explain its oper- 
ation. 

Each State has as many votes for President as it has mem- 
bers of Congress. The rule of representation in the Lower 
House has already been explained ; in the Senate it is different 
and each State, whatever be its population, has two senators, 
and no more. The free population of the slave States, as al- 
ready stated, is half that of the others ; but their number being 
equal, their representation in the Senate is also equal. 

If free population were the principle of representation in the 
Federal Government, as it is with scarcely an exception in all 
the States, the slave States would have, 

In the Senate, 13 members. 

In the House, 75 

Electoral votes for president, 88 

They have, In the Senate. 26 members. 

In the House, 100 

Electoral votes for President, 126 

Here we find the secret of the power of the South, and of the 
obsequiousness of the North. Ohio, with a population of 947,- 
000, has 19 members ; while Virginia, with a free population of 
200,000 less, has two members more. Take another example. 
Pennsylvania has 30 electoral votes ; the States of South Caro- 



220 jay's works. 

lina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky, 
with an aggregate free population of 189,791 less than Pennsyl- 
vania, have 53 electoral votes ! 

It cannot be supposed that this vast and most unequal represen- 
tation and consequent political power will be unemployed by its 
possessors. On the contrary, the slave-holders in Congress have 
uniformly succeeded in effecting their objects, when united among 
themselves. In 1836, this slave-power in Congress was adroitly 
turned to pecuniary profit. The Surplus Revenue remaining in 
the Treasury on the 1st of January, 1837, was to be distributed, 
and the rule of distribution became a question. The income, it 
is time, had been derived chiefly from the industry and enterprise 
of the North ; but the South insisted, and with her usual success, 
that instead of dividing the money according to population, it 
should be apportioned among the States according to their 
electoral votes. By this rule, the slave States, notwithstanding 
their inferiority in population, would share alike with the free, 
so far as regarded the number of their senators ; and with regard 
to their representatives, they would secure an apportionment of 
money on account of three-fifths of their two millions of slaves. 

The sum allotted by this gross and monstrous rule to the 
States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louis- 
iana, and Kentucky, was $6,754,588 ; while Pennsylvania, with 
a free population larger than that of all these six States together, 
was to receive only $3,823,353 ; so that, in fact, the slave-hold- 
ers of these States received, man for man, just about twice as 
many dollars from the national treasury as the hard-working 
citizens of Pennsylvania ! 

Notwithstanding this slave representation, the free States 
have a majority of members ; and hence it becomes important 
to investigate 

THE SOURCES OF THE SLAVE-HOLDING INFLUENCE IN 
CONGRESS. 

These may be regarded as threefold : First, their anxiety to 
protect and perpetuate slavery renders the Southern members 
united in whatever measures they consider important for this 
purpose, while the representatives from the North, having no 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 221 

common bond of union, are divided in opinion and effort. Sec- 
ondly, a slave State, having more votes to bestow on a presiden- 
tial candidate, and more members in Congress to support or 
oppose the administration than a free State of equal white pop- 
ulation, is of course of greater consequence in the estimation of 
politicians ; and hence arises an influence reaching to every 
measure, and weighing upon every question. Thirdly, the 
peculiar temperament of the Southern gentlemen, together with 
their observation of the servility of the Northern politicians, 
has induced them to resort, and with great success, to intimida- 
tion as a means of influence. 

The practice adopted by the slave-holders of threatening on 
all occasions to dissolve the Union, unless they are permitted to 
govern it, has been too long and firmly established to need 
illustration. We will at present merely give a few recent 
instances of outrageous menaces ; and to justify what we have 
said of the servility of Northern politicians, it is sufficient to 
observe, that these menaces were unrebuked. 

On the 18th of April, 183G, a petition against the continuance 
of slavery in the District of Columbia was presented to the 
House of Representatives, when Mr. Speight, of North Car- 
olina, declared in his place, that " he had great respect for the 
chair as an officer of the House, and a great respect for him 
personally; and nothing but that respect prevented him from 
rushing to the table and tearing that petition to pieces" Of 
course it was to be understood that the order of the House and 
the rights of Northern petitioners were respected, not from any 
constitutional obligations, but solely because the speaker, himself 
a slave-holder, was acceptable to Southern gentlemen. 

Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, the same session, in a 

speech, used the following language : " I warn the abolitionists, 

ignorant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall 

: throw any of them into our hands, he may expect a felon's 

i death." 

Mr. Lumpkin remarked in the Senate, (January, 1838,) "If 
abolitionists went to Georgia, they would be caught; " and Mr. 
Preston declared in the same debate — " Let an abolitionist 



222 jay's works. 

corne within the borders of South Carolina, if we can catch him, 
we will try him, and notwithstanding all the interference of all 
the governments on earth, including the Federal Government, 
we will HANG him." * 

It seems probable from these declarations that abolitionists, in 
their Southern travels, will meet with " barbarians " quite as 
" ignorant and infatuated " as themselves : and also that -the 
gibbet is to be the fate of any member of Congress, who shall by 
his votes or speeches dare to identify himself with the abolition- 
ists, and afterwards enter the slave-region. 

Such are the sources of the slave-holding influence in Con- 
gress. The following pages will exhibit many of the results of 
this influence, and the first to which the reader's attention is 
called, is 

THE OBSEQUIOUSNESS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES. 

As slave-holders are ready to hang abolitionists when they 
can " catch " them, it is not to be supposed that they will elect 
any of the proscribed sect President of the United States. Of 
course, it becomes important for such gentlemen as aspire to that 
honor, that their ideas on the subject of human rights should be 
adapted to the meridian of the slave-region. 

Previous to the last presidential canvass, Mr. Van Buren, 
being a candidate, thought it prudent to write a letter for publi- 
cation, containing the following passage : 

" I prefer that not only you, but all the people of the United States, 
shall now understand, that if the desire of that portion of them winch is 
favorable to my election to the chief magistracy should be gratified, I 
must go into the presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising 
opponent of any attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery in 
the District of Columbia, against the wishes of the slave-holding Stales." 

Wr. White was a rival candidate, and deemed it expedient to 
give his pledge also, which he did in these terms : 

" I do not believe Congress has the power to abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia ; and if that body did possess the power, I think 

*Yet this Carolina Senator, who is thus ready to sanction wholesale ^mur- 
der for opinion's sake, in defiance " of all the governments on earth," and 
the government in heaven, too, has been nominated for the office of Vice 
President of the United States, by the Whig party, in the State of Ohio, a 
party professing great attachment to the cause of constitutional liberty . 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 223 

the exercise of it would be the very worst policy. Holding these opinions, 
I would act on them in any situation in which I could be placed, and 
for both reasons would, if called on to act, withhold my assent to any bill 
having in view such an object." 

General Harrison, a third candidate, also, as we have 
understood, wrote his letter, but not having it before us we caunot 
quote it. We presume, however, it was thought sufficient, since 
an address in his behalf from his political friends in Virginia, 
assured the public that " he is sound to the core on the subject of 
slavery." 

Mr. Webster, the fourth and last candidate, had many years 
before fully committed himself as to the power of Congress over 
slavery in the District. He gave no pledge, and received no 
vote from any slave State. 

Another presidential election is approaching, and Mr. Clay 
is announced as the opposing candidate to the present incumbent. 
This gentleman's position with regard to human rights, has been 
deemed at the South equivocal and unsatisfactory. It is true he 
is a slave-holder, and although for more than twenty years an 
officer, and now the President of the Colonization Society, he 
has refrained from availing himself of the opportunities he has 
possessed of manumitting his slaves, and permitting them to enjoy 
in Africa the liberty which he insists it would be dangerous to 
allow them in America. Still his language and professions, in 
relation to the "delicate subject," have been indiscreet. In 
1827, he maintained in a public speech the right and policy of 
the Federal Government to aid the Colonization Society, and 
insisted that the annual increase of the colored population, bond 
and free, namely 52,000, might be transported to Africa. 

" If," said the orator, " I could be instrumental in eradicating this 
deepest stain (slavery) upon the character of our country, and removing 
! all cause for reproach on account of it by foreign nations — if I could 
; . only be instrumental in ridding of this foul blot, that revered State 
(Virginia) that gave me birth — or that not less beloved State (Ken- 
l fciicky) which kindly adopted me as her son, I would not exchange the 
1 proud satisfaction which I should enjoy for all the honor of all the tri- 
umphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror.* 

I * Speech before the American Colonization Society. 10th Rep., p. 12. 



224 jay's works. 

In the same speech he remarked, in reference to such as ob- 
jected to the agitation of the slavery question, — 

" If they would repress all tendencies towards liberty and ultimate 
emancipation, they must do more than put down the benevolent efforts 
of this Society. They must go back to the era of our liberty and inde- 
pendence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous 
return. They must revive the slave-trade, with all its train of atroci- 
ties. They must suppress the workings of British philanthropy, seeking 
to meliorate the condition of the unfortunate West India slaves. They 
must arrest the career of South American deliverance from thraldom. 
They must blow out the moral lights around us, and extinguish the 
greatest torch of all which America presents to a benighted world, 
pointing the way to their rights, their liberties and their happiness. 
They must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason 
and the love of liberty. Then, and not till then, when universal dark- 
ness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate slavery, and repress 
all sympathies and all humane and benevolent efforts among freemen, in 
behalf of the unhappy portions of our race who are doomed to bondage." 

It is not surprising that such sentiments should excite distrust 
of Mr. Clay at the South ; a distrust by no means likely to be 
dissipated by the following extract from " The Life of the Hon. 
Henry Clay, by George G. Prentiss," published some years 
since, — an extract which has been zealously circulated of late 
by Southern papers, devoted to the support of Northern men ivith 
Southern principles. 

" The commencement of Mr. Clay's political career may be dated 
as far back as the year 1797, — a period at which he had scarcely be- 
gun the practice of law. The people of Kentucky were then about to 
elect a convention to frame a new constitution for the State. And one 
feature of the plan which had been submitted to them was a provision 
for the final emancipation of the slave population. The strongest pre- 
judices of a majority of the people, in every part of the State, were I 
arraigned against this measure, and MR. CLAY was aware of the ' 
fact; his SENTIMENTS and his FEELINGS were on the side of 
EMANCIPATION ; and without taking a moment's heed to his pop- 
ularity, he entered into the defence of his FAVORITE POLICY, 
with all the deep and unquenchable ardor of his nature. His vigorous 
pen was busy in the public journals, and his eloquent voice was raised 
in almost every assemblage, in favor of the election of men to the con- 
vention who would contend for the ERADICATION OF SLA- 
VERY. A conviction of the expediency and necessity of EMAN- 
CIPATION has been spreading farther and farther among our coun- 
trymen, and taking deeper and deeper root in their minds, and it I 
requires not the spirit of prophecy to foretell the END. This rapid I 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 225 

and continued triumph of the PRINCIPLES, of which it was the 
object of MR. CLAY'S first political labors to establish, may well be 
a source of pride to him and honest exultation to his friends." 

Mr. Clay's course in Congress had, moreover, not been satis- 
factory to the slave-party. He had not advocated the annexation 
of Texas — he had not denied the constitutional power of Congress 
to abolish slavery in the District — he had expressed himself in 
favor of receiving abolition petitions — and, above all, he had 
voted against Mr. Calhoun's bill establishing a censorship of the 
press ; a bill which received the sanction of Mr. Van Buren 
.and his partisans, the two New York senators, Messrs. Wright 
and Tallmadge. 

The administration party at the South were making great use 
of all these circumstances against Mr. Clay, and it became 
obvious that unless he could conciliate the slave-holders, he had 
little prospect of success. » 

The Mobile " Commercial Register " thus announced the de- 
mand of the South : 

" We must do by Mr. Clay as the South have done by Mr. Van 
Buren — leave him not an inch of neutral ground to stand upon be- 
tween the South and the fanatics. We must push him as far as Mr. 
Van Buren was pushed. The southern safety demands it. He must 
measure the whole length, and walk altogether off the middle neutral 
ground which he occupies, or the South will reject and spurn 

HIM." 

In this state of things, a petition from some of the inhabitants 
of the District against abolition was put into the hands of Mr. 
Clay, and he determined to make such a use of it as might save 
him from being rejected and spurned by the South. Accordingly, 
a speech in support of the petitions was prepared, submitted to 
the consideration of his friends, and finally delivered in the Sen- 
ate of the United States on the 7th of February, 1839. In this 
; memorable document he vindicates the Senate from all inten- 
tional violation of the right of petition in their mode of disposing 
'of the abolition petitions — he declares himself "irresistibly 
impelled to do whatever is in his power to dissuade the public 
from continuing to agitate a subject fraught with the most dire- 
20 



226 jay's works. 

ful consequences." He distinguishes the abolitionists from those 
who are content to keep their conscientious objections against 
slavery to themselves, and from those who think the constitu- 
tional right of petition has been invaded by Congress ; and then 
draws a false and distorted picture of those whom he pleases to 
term " the real ultra abolitionists." With these men, he tells 
us, " the deficiency of the power of the General Government is 
nothing — the acknowledged and incontestable powers of the 
States are nothing — civil war, and dissolution of the Union, 
and the overthrow of a government, in which are concentrated 
the fondest hopes of the civilized world, are nothing." That it 
may not be supposed he now rejoices in " the working of British 
philanthropy," he declares, " if the British Parliament treated 
the West India slaves as freemen, it also treated West India 
freemen as SLAVES." Daniel O'Conncll, on account of his 
indignant rebukes of American slavery, is denounced by the 
Kentucky senator, as " the plunderer of his own country, and 
the libeller of a foreign and kindred people." He then turns to 
the District of Columbia, and in this focus of the American 
slave-trade, and slave-ships, and slave-prisons, and slave-coffles, 
and slave-auctions, he asserts that slavery " exists here in the 
mildest and most mitigated form," and he argues that Congress 
cannot rightfully abolish it. On the American slave-trade, 
he is very explicit and logical : " I deny that the General Gov- 
ernment has any authority whatever from the Constitution to 
abolish what is called the slave-trade, or, in other words, to pro- 
hibit the removal of slaves from one slave State to another slave 
State. The grant in the Constitution " (of power to Congress 
to regulate commerce between the States) " is of a power of 
regulation, and not prohibition." Mr. Clay's perception of 
the distinction between regulation and prohibition, was not so 
clear before he became a candidate for the Presidency. In an 
address he made to the Kentucky Colonization Society in 1829, 
after calling the African slave-trade " the most abominable traf- 
fic that ever disgraced the annals of the human race," he alluded 
to the act of Congress prohibiting it, and remarked, " on the 2d 
of March, 1807, the act was passed, for which it was my happy 






ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 227 

lot to vote." " The grant in the Constitution," under which Mr. 
Clay voted for the act prohibiting the trade, was that of power 
to Congress " to regulate, foreign commerce." 

As if to apologize for having in his youthful days advocated 
emancipation in Kentucky, he refers in his speech to the incon- 
siderable number of slaves then in the State : " but," he adds, 
" if I had been then, or were NOW, a citizen of any of the 
planting States — the Southern or Southwestern States — I 
should have opposed, and would continue to oppose, any scheme 
whatever of emancipation, GRADUAL or IMMEDIATE." 
In 1797, Mr. Clay was anxious that the Kentucky Convention 
should take measures "for the eradication of slavery." In 1838, 
a law was passed submitting to the people the expediency of 
calling another convention. Mr. Clay avows that, " emancipa- 
tion had its influence " in procuring the passage of this law ; but 
in regard to the proposed convention, by which his early wishes 
might have been consummated, he tells us, "I felt myself con- 
strained to take immediate, bold, and decided ground against it ! " 
Yet this is the man who, a few years since, would not exchange 
the satisfaction of being instrumental in eradicating slavery from 
his country, " for all the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed 
to the most successful conqueror ! " Verily, slavery has achieved 
a triumph that attests its withering power over exalted genius 
and high and generous aspirations, — a triumph for which hu- 
manity must weep, and patriotism blush. 

We are now prepared to investigate the direct action of the 
Federal Government in behalf of slavery; and commencing 
with appointments to office, Ave will proceed to trace this action, 
first, in laws and measures of a local and private nature, and 
then in attempts to promote the general interests and perpetuity 
of the institution. 

APPOINTMENTS TO OFFICE. 

As the citizens of the free States are nearly double in number 
to those of the slave States, it might naturally be supposed that 
the former would furnish the larger share of the great officers 
of the Union. To such as have indulged this supposition, the 



228 jay's works. 

following extract from a speech lately delivered in the Senate of 
the United States, by Mr. Davis of Massachusetts, will no doubt 
afford very startling information. 

" This interest (slavery) has ruled the destinies of the republic. 
For FORTY out of forty-eight years, it has given us a President 
from its own territory and of its own selection. During all this time, 
it has not only had a President, sustaining its own peculiar views of 
public policy, but through him, has held and used in its own way, the 
whole organization of all the departments, and all the vast and con- 
trolling patronage incident to that office, to aid it in carrying on its 
views and policy, as well as to protect and secure to it every advantage. 

" Let us explore a little further and see how the Houses of Congress 
have been organized. For THIRTY years out of thirty-six, that 
interest has placed its own speaker in the chair of the other House, 
thus securing the organization of committees, and the great influence 
of that station. And, sir, while all other interests have, during part of 
the time, had the chair (vice presidency) in which you preside assigned 
to them as an equivalent for these great concessions, yet in each 
year, when a President pro tern, is elected, who upon the contingencies 
mentioned in the Constitution will be the President of the United States, 
that interest has INVARIABLY given us that office. Look, I beseech 
you, through all the places of honor, of profit, and privilege ; and 
there you will find the representatives of this interest in numbers that 
indicate its influence. Does not, then, this interest rule, guide, and 
adapt public pobcy to its own views, and fit it to suit the action and 
products of its own labor ? " 

Let us see how far the present amount of slave interest in the 
Federal Government justifies the general statement made by 
Mr. Davis. The presidential chair, it is true, is filled by a 
northern man ; but he is one who pledged himself to this inter- 
est before he was elected ; who had manifested his devotion to 
this interest, by giving his vote for a censorship of the press, 
for the avowed purpose of restraining the circulation of anti- 
slavery papers ; and who was elected to his present station by 
southern votes ! Be it recollected, moreover, that the southern 
journals have insisted that a northern man with southern princi- 
ples, could more effectually subserve this interest as President, 
than a slave-holder. 

In the office of Vice President, we have a slave-holder from 
Kentucky, presiding over the deliberations of the Senate. 

A slave-holder is seated in the chair of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, appointing committees on the District of Columbia, 






ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 229 

enforcing gag resolutions against such as Avould repeal or modify 
the laws of Congress violating the rights of man, and deciding 
all questions of order in discussions bearing upon the great 

INTEREST. 

A desire is now manifested by the South to bring into the Su- 
preme Court of the United States certain questions touching the 
rights and duties of the free States, relative to slaves who may 
come or be brought within their limits. Since the year 1830 
there have been five appointments to the bench of this court, 
and all from slave States. The majority of the court, including 
the Chief Justice, are citizens of those States. But when 
these questions come before the court, it may be highly impor- 
tant for the slave-holders to have an Attorney General to 
argue them, in whom they can confide. Accordingly the office 
is filled by Mr. Grundy, who lately evinced his qualifications 
for the station, by expressing in his place as Senator from Ten- 
nessee, his approbation of Lynch law, as applied to abolition- 
ists. At the head of the department of State, whence issue 
instructions for conventions and treaties, protecting the African 
slave-trade from British cruisers, and the American slave-trade 
from the interference of British colonial authorities, and also for 
conventions for the return of fugitive slaves, is placed a gentle- 
man from Georgia. 

At the court of Great Britain we are represented by a slave- 
holder from Virginia, who, under the direction of the gentleman 
from Georgia, is bargaining about the value of shipwrecked 
negroes, and threatening the British government with the ven- 
geance of the Republic, if it shall hereafter dare to liberate 
slaves who may be forced into its colonies. 

At the head of the Navy Department we behold a citizen 
of the North, enjoying the reward of his labor, in concocting 
one of the most virulent volumes in vindication of slavery, and 
vituperation of its opponents, that has ever issued from the 
press. 

A slave-holder from South Carolina, distinguished for his 
negotiation in Mexico for the surrender of fugitive slaves, pre- 
sides over the War Department. 
20* 



230 jay's works. 

Kentucky furnishes a Postmaster-General whose devo- 
tion to the " interest " had led him to authorize every Post- 
master to act as censor of the press, and to take from the mails 
every paper adverse to slavery. Thus have the slave-holders 
seized upon the Federal Government, and converted, as we shall 
presently see, what was intended as the palladium of liberty, 
into the shield of despotism. 

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE TERRITORIAL LAWS OF 
FLORIDA. 

By the Constitution, Congress has " power to dispose of and 
make all needful regulations respecting the territory belonging 
to the United States." Under this provision the territorial legis- 
latures are permitted to enact laws which are in force till abro- 
gated by Congress, and that body legislates directly for the 
territories whenever it thinks proper. Hence it is morally 
responsible for the territorial legislation. 

On the 11th of February, 1834, Messrs. J. & M. Garnett and 
Maria Garnett, all of Virginia, presented a petition to Congress, 
setting forth that they were the owners of certain slaves whom 
they hired to persons in Florida ; and that by a law of the terri- 
tory a tax of ten dollars was imposed on every slave owned by a 
non-resident ; and they prayed Congress to relieve them from 
the payment of this tax. It was obvious that this tax tended to 
discourage slave-holders from sending their slaves into Florida 
and there hiring them at high rates to the new settlers, who had 
not capital enough immediately to stock their plantations. Con- 
gress, without hesitation, abolished the tax. The law thus an- 
nulled was not in itself revolting to justice or humanity. But 
there was then, and still is, a law of Florida of a very different 
character. 

On the 4th of February, 1832, it was enacted that whenever" 
a judgment for debt was recovered in the territory against a free 
negro or mulatto, and the judgment was not satisfied in five 
days, the debtor should be sold at auction to pay the judgment. 
Imprisonment for debt is now deemed a relic of barbarism, but 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 231 

here we have an instance of insolvent debtors being sold for 
the benefit of their creditors, virtually by the authority, and 
directly with the sanction of the Congress of the United States ! 
The practical operation of this law is to convert free negroes 
into slaves. A recent sale under it will illustrate its character. 
Within a few months a free negro was sold at Appalachicola for 
ten years, to satisfy a debt which, including legal costs, amounted 
to seventy dollars ; so that his services were valued at seven 
dollars a year ! The common wages paid in that part of the 
country for slave-labor, may be learned from the following 
notice, taken from the Brunswick (Ga.) Advertiser, 25th of 
January, 1838 : 

" Wanted to hire. — The undersigned wish to hire one thousand 
negroes, to work on the Brunswick canal, of whom one-third may be 
women. Sixteen dollars per month will be paid for steady, prime 
men, and thirteen dollars for able women. 

F. & A. Pratt, 

P. M. Nightengale." 

It is obvious that a sale under this law, for a term of years, is 
equivalent to a sale for life. The debtor may be sold from hand 
to hand, and at the expiration of his term may find himself 
under the lash of a driver in Louisiana or Missouri, without the 
possibility of proving his title to freedom. Yet, a proposition 
in Congress to repeal this most inhuman and profligate law 
would be laid upon the table, and not a representative of the 
people be permitted to say a word on the subject. 

action of congress in behalf of the slave-holders 
of louisiana. 

On the 31st of May, 1830, the House of representatives 

adopted a resolution, directing the Secretary of the Treasury to 

ascertain and report the number of hands (slaves) required per 

J acre in the sugar cultivation. The Secretary accordingly issued 

| a circular, proposing a number of interrogatories respecting the 

cultivation of sugar, and among others, the following : " The 

I number of hands (slaves) required to cultivate a given quantity 



232 jay's works. 

of land planted with cane, and to perform all the labor necessary 
in the manufacture of sugar in the different places where it is 
made." 

This circular was widely distributed, and the answers returned 
to it were published at public expense ; and thus were the sugar 
growers instructed, by means of the Federal Government, with 
what number of slaves to stock their plantations ; what expense 
they must incur in feeding and clothing them, and what number 
of new slaves they must annually procure to keep up the 
" force." From the information thus furnished, it appeared that 
the destruction of slaves in this culture is so great, that there is 
a yearly excess of deaths over births of two and a half per 
Cent.* This waste of life is supplied from the breeding farms 
of Maryland and Virginia. Turning from this private and local 
action of the Federal Government, we will now take a view of 
its enlarged and comprehensive efforts for the general protection 
and perpetuity of the slave system. The advocates of that 
system have always looked with distrust and alarm upon the 
free colored people, and have deemed it good policy to prevent 
their acquisition of power and influence : hence the 

EFFORTS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO OPPRESS AND 
DEGRADE THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 

The Constitution of the United States acknowledges no right 
or disqualification founded on complexion ; but those who have 
administered it, have made the tincture of the skin of far greater 
importance than the qualities of either the head or the heart. 
So early as 1790, Congress passed an act prescribing the mode 
in which " any alien, being a white person," might be natural- 
ized and admitted to the rights of an American citizen. 

Two years after, an act Avas passed for organizing the militia, 
which was to consist of " each and every free, able-bodied 
white male citizen," &c. No other government on earth pro- 
hibits any portion of its citizens from participating in the national 
defence ; and this strange and degrading prohibition, utterly 

* See Report of Secretary of the Treasury, January 19, 1831. 






ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 233 

repugnant to the principles both of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence and of the Constitution, marks the solicitude of the Federal 
Government to pursue the policy most agreeable to the slave- 
holders. But not content with this insult to colored citizens, 
another, and perhaps a still more wanton and malignant one, 
was offered by the Government in the act of 1810, organizing 
the Post Office Department. The 4th Section enacts that " no 
other than a free white person shall be employed in carrying 
the mail of the United States, either as post-rider or driver of a 
carriage carrying the mail," under a penalty of fifty dollars. 

Any vagabond from Europe, any fugitive from our own pris- 
ons, may take charge of the United States mail ; but a native 
born American citizen, of unimpeachable morals, and with prop- 
erty acquired by honest industry, may not, if his skin be dark, 
guide the horses which draw the carriage in which a bag of 
newspapers is deposited.* 

Such are the insults heaped by the Federal Government on 
the colored citizens throughout the States ; let us see what con- 
duct it pursues towards them on its own territory, over which it 
possesses " exclusive jurisdiction." 

In 1820, Congress passed a law authorizing the white citi- 
zens of the city of Washington to elect white city officers ; 
thus making a white shin an indispensable qualification for both 
suffrage and office. The officers thus elected were specially 
empowered by the national legislature " to prescribe the terms and 
conditions on which free negroes and mulattoes may reside in the 
Icity." In pursuance of this grant of power, the white officers 
passed an ordinance (May 31, 1827) requiring all the free col- 
ored persons then in Washington and wishing to remain, to be 
registered ; and enacting, that if any free man with a colored 

\ *The following letter of instruction from the Postmaster General to one 
'of his deputies, written in 1828, is a curious commentary on this law. 
• " Sir, — The mail may not, in any case whatever, be in the custody of a 
colored person. If a colored person is employed to lift the mail from the 
Utage into the Post Office, it does not pass into his custody, but the labor is 
'performed in the presence and under the immediate direction of the white 
person who has it in custody : but if a colored person takes it from a tavern 
ind carries it himself to the Post Office, it conies into his custody during the 
;ime of carrying it ; which is contrary to law. I am, &c, 

John McLean. 



234 jay's works. 

skin should presume to play at cards, or even to be present while 
another free colored person was playing, he should be fined not 
exceeding five dollars ; that if he should have a dance in his 
house, without permission from the loliite Mayor, he should be 
fined not exceeding ten dollars ; that should he take the liberty 
to go out of his own house after ten o'clock at night, Avithout a 
pass from a Justice of the Peace, or " some respectable citi- 
zen," (!) he might be compelled to pass the rest of the night " in 
a lock-up house," and the next morning be fined ten dollars ; 
and should any dark complexioned free man be guilty of drunk- 
enness or profane language, he should be fined not exceeding 
three dollars. Thus we see with what zeal the Washington 
Corporation endeavors to prevent the colored citizens from 
affecting the manners and fashions of their white brethren. But 
there are still more serious matters. A colored citizen from any of 
the States, taking up his residence in the Capital of the Repub- 
lic, is required within a certain time, not only to be registered, 
but also to find two freehold sureties in the penalty of five hun- 
dred dollars, for his good behavior ; and if he does not, he is to 
be imprisoned till he consents to leave the seat of the Federal 
Government; and if he does not prove that he is a* freeman, he 
shall be sold as a slave to pay his jail fees I 

In 1830, a bill to establish the territorial government of Iowa 
was before Congress. A slave-holder from Alabama moved to 
exclude colored persons from the right of suffrage ; and the 
obedient Senate consented.* 

Such are the abominable and iniquitous means used by and 
with the sanction of Congress for the degradation and oppres- 
sion of colored citizens. We are next to take a view of - 

SLAVERY UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE FEDERAL 
GOVERNMENT. 

It is well known that Congress is the local legislature of the 
District of Columbia, and of all the territories belonging to the 
Union, and with powers far exceeding those possessed by any 

* In 1787, when our fathers established the government of the North- 
western Territory, they prohibited slavery, and disfranchised no man on ac- 
count of his complexion. 






ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 235 

State Legislature, being unfettered with constitutional restric- 
tions. The authority vested in Congress over the District and 
territories, is virtually despotic, being " an exclusive jurisdiction 
in all cases whatsoever." Yet we have long had slave-holding 
territories. The vast domain acquired by the purchase of Lou- 
isiana, has, under the authority of Congress, been stocked with 
slaves, excepting so much as is north of 36|° north latitude, 
which is, by Act of Congress, specially protected from the pol- 
lution. This very law is one of the most decided acts of the 
Federal Government in behalf of slavery ; for by means of it, 
the immense territory south of this line was deliberately surren- 
dered to all the cruelties and abominations of the system ; it 
was moreover an express acknowledgment by the Government 
of its power to prohibit slavery throughout the tvhole territory, 
and that it had made a compromise, a bargain between human- 
ity and cruelty, religion and wickedness ; and had erected, on 
an arbitrary line, a partition wall between slavery and liberty. 

But it is in the District of Columbia, and under the shadow of 
the proud Capitol, that the action of the Federal Government 
in behalf of slavery is exhibited in its most odious and disgust- 
ing forms. We shall have occasion presently to exhibit the seat 
of the National Government as the great slave mart of the 
North American continent, " furnished with all appliances and 
means to boot." The old slave-laws of Virginia and Maryland, 
marked by the barbarity of other days, form by Act of Congress 
the slave-code of the District. Of this code, a single sample 
will suffice. A slave convicted of setting fire to a building, 
shall have his head cut off, and his body divided into quarters, 
and the parts set up in the most public places ! But let it not 
be supposed that Congress has not itself legislated directly on 
the subject of slavery. An Act of 15th May, 1820, gives the 
! Corporation of Washington power to " punish corporeally any 
: slave for a breach of any of their ordinances." Happy would 
it have been for the honor of our country, if the sympathies of 
'its rulers in behalf of slavery had been exhibited only on the 
national domain ; but they pervade every portion of the confed- 
eracy, as is but too apparent in 



236 jay's works. 

the interference of the federal government for 
the recovery of fugitive slaves. 

The Federal Constitution contains the following clause : " No 
person held to service or labor in one State under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law 
or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, 
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due." 

At the time this constitution was adopted, the cultivation and 
manufacture of cotton had not so far progressed, as to paralyze, 
by their profits, the conscience of the nation, or to divest it of 
the sense of shame ; and hence this clause, although relating to 
slaves, forbears to name them. It was inserted to satisfy the 
South ; and its obvious meaning is, that slaves escaping into 
States in which slavery is abolished by law, shall not therefore 
be deemed free by the State authorities, but shall be delivered 
by those authorities to his master. This clause imposes an obli- 
gation on the States, but confers no power on Congress ; and the 
Constitution moreover declares, that " the powers not delegated 
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to 
the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
people." Hence it follows, that as the power of recovering these 
fugitives is not delegated to Congress, it is reserved to the sev- 
eral States, who are bound to make such laws as may be deemed 
proper, to authorize the master to recover his slave. Neverthe- 
less, the Federal Government in its zeal for slavery, has not 
scrupled to assume power never delegated to it, and has exer- 
cised that power in contemptuous violation of every principle, 
which in free countries directs the administration of justice. If 
a Virginian enters New York, and claims as his property a horse 
which he finds in the possession of one of our citizens, an im- 
partial jury is selected to pass on his claim, — witnesses are 
orally and publicly examined, — the claimant is debarred from 
all private intercourse with the jury ; and when the trial is over, 
the jury retire to deliberate on their verdict, under the charge of] 



: 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 237 

an officer who is sworn to keep them apart, and not to suffer any 
person to speak with them ; nor can the horse be at last recov- 
ered but with the unanimous consent of the jury. But let the 
Virginian claim, not the horse, but the CITIZEN HIMSELF, 
as his beast of burden, and the Federal Government makes all 
things easy for him. By the Act of 1793, the slave-holder may 
himself, without oath, or process of any kind, seize his prey 
where he can find him, and at his leisure, (for no time is speci- 
fied,) drag him before any Justice of the Peace in the place, 
whem he may prefer.* This justice is a State officer, and of 
the lowest judicial grade, and under no legal obligation to exe- 
cute an act of Congress, and entitled to no fees for his services. 
Pie is therefore peculiarly accessible to improper influences. 
Before this magistrate, who is not authorized to compel the 
attendance of witnesses in such a case, the slave-holder brings 
his victim, and if he can satisfy this judge of his own choice, 
f by oral testimony or affidavit," and for aught that appears in 
the law, by his own oath, that his claim is well founded, the 
wretched prisoner is surrendered to him as a slave for life, torn 
from his wife and children, bereft of all the rights of humanity, 
and converted into a chattel, — an article of merchandise, — a 
beast of burden ! ! 

The Federal Constitution declares : — "In suits at common 
law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, 
the right of trial by jury shall be preserved ; " but the Act of 
1793, in suits in which " the value in controversy " exceeds all 
estimation, dispenses with trial by jury, and indeed with almost 
every safeguard of justice and personal liberty. 

This law, iniquitous as it is, does not require State officers to 
anticipate the pursuit of the slave-holder, and to seize and im- 
prison their fellow-men, on mere suspicion that they may be 
claimed as slaves. What the Federal Government dares not do 
! in the States, it accomplishes on its own exclusive territory, and 
lin a manner which, for atrocious wickedness and tyranny, leaves 

* In New York the Legislature has interfered, and forbidden a Justice of 
the Peace to act, and has therefore virtually declared the Act of Congress to 
be unconstitutional, — and that the power of prescribing the mode in which 
fugitives shall be restored, belongs exclusively to the States. 

21 



238 jay's works. 

far in the shade the vilest acts of European despotism. This is 
indeed strong language ; but alas ! language is too feeble ade- 
quately to represent the turpitude of the laws and practices 
sanctioned by the Federal Government in the District under its 
" exclusive jurisdiction." 

By the Act of 1793, a justice can take no step for the resto- 
ration of a fugitive slave, till the fact of his being one is proved 
before him on oath. But in the Metropolis of the Nation, — in 
the city called by the name of the Father of his Country, a 
Justice of the Peace may commit to the United States Pris- 
on, and into the costody of the United States Marshal, any 
man he may choose to suspect of being a fugitive slave. Notice 
is then given in the newspapers of the commitment, and the 
unknown owner is warned to take away his property, or it will 
be sold according to law, to pay JAIL FEES. 

After the doors of the dungeon have closed upon the victim, 
no magistrate, no court, no jury take cognizance of his claims 
of freedom. The jailer is the only tribunal to which he can 
appeal, and how disinterested a tribunal will presently be seen. 
If a free man, no master can of course lawfully claim him, and 
not being claimed, he is sold at auction to raise money to pay 
an officer of the Federal Government for the trouble and ex- 
pense of keeping him a few weeks in prison. What civilized 
government of the old world practises more execrable wicked- 
ness ? * 

The whole depth of this villany is not yet sounded. The 
disclosures we are now about making should make every ear to 
tingle, and every heart to quake. No doubt it will occur to 
many that if a free man, all the prisoner has to do, to obtain his 
liberation, is to prove his freedom. Prove his freedom while 

* Not as an apology for this expression, but as a reason why the writer 
feels more sensibly than perhaps many others on this subject, he thinks 
proper to mention that a free colored man belonging to his neighborhood in 
West Chester County, N. Y., on going to Washington some years since, was 
there legally kidnapped, and advertised by the Marshal to be sold to pay his 
jail fees. A Washington paper containing the advertisement providentially 
fell into the hands of a citizen of the County who knew the man. A public 
meeting was called, and the Governor of the State, De Witt Clinton, at their 
request, demanded from the President his immediate release as a citizen of 
New York. 






ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 239 

locked up in his cell ! Where is his counsel ? — where his pro- 
cess for commanding the attendance of Avitnesses ? where the 
court sitting in open day to investigate his right to freedom ? 
where the jury to pass upon his case ? The marshal, or his 
deputy the jailer, is the only human heing, except his fellow- 
victims, to whom he can tell his tale. The marshal is the judge, 
and the sole judge of his prisoner's title to freedom. lie is the 
arbiter of happiness and misery, of liberty and bondage : he 
opens the door of the dungeon, and at his sovereign will bids his 
captive go forth to enjoy the rights and fulfil the duties of a 
rational, accountable, and immortal being, or conducts him to 
the human shambles erected in the city of Washington, and 
there sells him under the hammer as a slavr for life. Com- 
pared with this tremendous jurisdiction, the powers vested in 
the highest judicial officer in our country dwindle into insignifi- 
cance. And should such a judge be disinterested? The very 
question is shocking to our every idea of justice. Disinterested ! 
Screened from the public eye — accountable only to that Being 
who seeth in secret — declaring his judgment in the recesses of 
the prison, he should of all men be most exempt from human 
passion and infirmity. Yet to this judge the law offers a high 
and tempting bribe to sell men he knows to be free, and thus to 
become a manufacturer of slaves. Will this statement be cred- 
ited? It cannot, and ought not to be, without full and unequiv- 
ocal proof, and to that proof we now appeal ; premising for the 
better understanding of our proof, that the marshal is required 
to maintain the suspected fugitives while in his custody, and is 
entitled to fees for receiving them, &c, and if unreclaimed, has 
no means of procuring payment of his expenses and fees but 
from the proceeds of the sale of his prisoners ; and further, that 
the whole of those proceeds are permitted by law to remain in 
his pocket, unless after the sale the master should be discovered, 
and should claim the balance. 

On the 11th of January, 1827, the committee on the District 

< of Columbia, to whom the subject had been referred by the 

< House of Representatives, reported that " in this District, as in 
! all the slave-holding States in the Union, the legal presumption 



240 jay's works. 

is, that persons of color going at large without any evidences of 
their freedom, are absconding slaves, and prima facie liable to 
all the legal provisions applicable to that class of persons." 
They state that in the part of the District ceded by Virginia, a 
free negro may be arrested and put in jail for three months on 
suspicion of being a fugitive ; he is then to be hired out to pay 
his jail fees ; and if he does not prove his freedom within twelve 
months, is to be sold as a slave. This statement is followed by 
the remark, " the committee do not consider any alteration of 
the law in the County of Alexandria in relation to this subject, 
necessary ! " In the County of Washington, ceded by Mary- 
land, they inform us, " If a free man of color should be appre- 
hended as a runaway, he is subjected to the payment of all fees 
and rewards given by law for apprehending runaways ; and 
upon failure to make such payment, is liable to be sold as a 
slave." That is, a man acknowledged to be free, and unaccused 
of any offence, is to be sold as a slave to pay the " fees and 
rewards given by law for apprehending runaways." If Turkish 
despotism is disgraced by any enactment of equal atrocity, we 
are ignorant of the fact. Even the committee thought this law 
rather hard, and therefore they " recommended such an alteration 
of it as would make such charges payable by the corporation of 
Washington."* But the Federal Government, unwavering in its 
devotion to slavery, made no alteration, and the code of Wash- 
ington is to this day polluted by unquestionably the most iniqui- 
tous statute in Christendom. Laws are sometimes more proflii 
gate than those who are called to administer them, and the 
committee assure us that the marshal has in all cases refrained 
from selling his prisoners for fees and charges, when their right 
to freedom has been established ; and in consequence of not 
availing himself of the privilege allowed him by this law, he 
had incurred, in the last eight years, a personal loss of $500 ! 
In other words, the marshal's sense of justice, decency, and 
humanity, exceeded that of the rulers of our Republic. 

On the 29th of January, 1829, the committee on the District 
of Columbia made a report in obedience to the instructions of 

* See Reports of Committee, 2 Sess., 19 Cong., Vol. I, No. 43. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 241 

the House of Representatives, " to inquire into the slave-trade 
as it exists in and is carried on through the District." The re- 
port proposes no interference on the part of Congress, but is 
virtually an apology for this vile traffic, as is apparent from the 
following heartless sentiments and false assertions. 

" The trade alluded to is presumed to refer more particularly to that 
which is carried on with the view of transporting slaves to the South, 
which is one way of gradually diminishing the evil conmlained of here ; 
while the situation of these persons is considerably mitigated by being 
transplanted to a more genial and bountiful clime. Although violence 
may sometimes be done to their feelings in the separation of families, 
it is by the laws of society which operate upon them as property, and 
cannot be avoided as long as they exist ; yet it should be some consola- 
tion to those whose feelings are interested in their behalf, to know that 
their condition is more frequently bettered, and their minds happier by 
the exchange." * 

To this report is appended a letter (January 13, 1829,) from 
the marshal to the committee, containing most important and 
heart-rending statements. 

It appears from this letter, that from the 1st of January, 1826, 
to 1st of January, 1828, there were committed to the Wash- 
ington prison, as runaways, 101. 

Proved to be free, and discharged, 15 

Unclaimed, and sold for maintenance, and charges, and fees, 5 

Proved to be slaves, and delivered to their masters, 81 

101 
In 1828, committed as runaways, 78. 

Proved to be free, 11 

Unclaimed, or sold for jail fees, etc. 1 

Delivered to their masters, 66 

78 
Here then is proof, official documentary proof, that in three 
years, 179 human beings were, by the authority of the Federal 
Government, arrested in one county of the District, and com- 
mitted to prison on no allegation of crime, but merely to aid 
the slave-holders in trampling upon those great principles of 
human rights, for the protection of which the National Govern- 
ment was professedly founded. It is also in proof, that of these 

* Reports of Committees, 2 Sess., 20 Cong., No. 60. 
21* 



242 jay's works. 

179 prisoners, 26 were, by the confession of the marshal, free 
men ; men whom (as appears from the report we have quoted,) 
he had a legal right to consign to hopeless and awful bondage, 
merely because they were too poor to pay the expenses of their 
unjust imprisonment ; and who were indebted for their liberty j 
not to the laws and constitution of their country, but to the be- 
neficence of their jailer — a beneficence too, exercised at his own 
pecuniary loss. Proof also is here given, that six persons un- 
claimed as slaves, were, by the judgment of this same jailer, 
without counsel, witnesses, or trial, sentenced to be sold as slaves 
for the purpose of raising money, the whole of which, as we 
shall presently see, was paid over to the judge who pronounced 
the sentence. The marshal gives in his letter the particulars of 
the sale of five unclaimed negroes, as follows : 

Si — Amount of jail fees, etc. $84 82 
Offered for sale according to law, and no person being 
willing to give $84.82, he was purchased by Tench Ringgold, 
the marshal, for that sum, and afterwards sold by him to Ro- 
bert Bown for $20, by which the marshal lost 64 82 

Hannah Green sold for $61 00 

Maintenance, &c. 48 71 

Balance remaining in marshal's hands, $12 29 

Lewis Davis sold for $250 00 

Amount of fees, &c. 50 07 

Balance remaining in marshal's hands, $199 93 

James Green sold for $80 00 

Fees and maintenance, 49 66 

Balance remaining in marshal's hands, $30 34 

Arthur Neal sold for amount of his jail fees and maintenance, 

to the marshal, being $46 06 

Sold afterwards by private sale to J. G. Hutton for 40 00 

Lost by marshal, $6 06 

The letter concludes thus : 

" The marshal has always considered it to be his duty, whenever a 
negro was committed as a runaway by a Justice of the Peace, who in 
all cases under the law commits them, which negro had not in his pos- 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 243 

session proof of his freedom, but alleged himself to be a freeman, to 
write to any part of the United States to persons ■who the negro affirm- 
ed could prove his freedom, urging them to send on their certificates 
of such negro being free ; and in many instances, these letters of the 
marshal or his jailer have been the means of bringing proof that the 
negro was free. 

" The law of Maryland in force in this District, directs that the bal- 
ance of sales of negroes (sold as runaways) shall remain in the mar' 
shal's hands until the runaway was identified as the property of some 
master ; and in conformity thereto, the marshal has uniformly handed 
over such balance whenever the master proved his property. In a late 
case, Mr. Sprigg, of Louisiana, lost a valuable slave, who escaped from 
him, and made his way to this District, and was committed to my cus- 
tody, advertised and sold, accoi'ding to law, leaving a balance of Jive 
hundred dollars, after paying ^maintenance, &c, in my hand. The 
negro was carried to Louisiana by the person who purchased him of 
me, discovered by his former master, Mr. Sprigg, who sent on here 
and claimed his money. Having ascertained that this negro was the 
property of Mr. Sprigg, I paid the $500 on demand to his agent here, 
Mr. Josiah Johnson, Senator of Congress from that State. 

Tench Kinggold, Marshal Dis. Col." 

Such are the secrets of the prison-house established by the 
Federal Government. It may be well to contemplate them in 
detail. It appears from the cases of Si and Neal, that the Mar- 
shal of the United States, after deciding on the liberty or bond- 
age of his prisoners, is allowed to take his fees in human flesh, 
and the condemned becomes the property of the very judge 
who sentenced him to servitude, and who carries him into the 
market there to make out of him as much money as he can. 
True it is, Mr. Ringgold's speculations appear not to have been 
very productive, but other jailer-judges may have less honesty, 
or more skill in negro flesh. The marshal, it seems, sold his 
fees in the shape of Si, for only $20. No reason is assigned 
for this nominal price. Very probably it was a case [similar to 
the one described by Mr. Miner, in his speech on the floor of 
the House of Representatives, in 1829. " In August, 1821," 

! said Mr. M., " a black man was taken up, and imprisoned as a 
runaway. He was kept confined until October, 1822, four hun- 

j dred and five days. In this time, vermin, disease, and misery 
had deprived him of the use of his limbs. He was rendered a 

, cripple for life, and finanly discharged, as no one would buy Mm.' 
The Hannah and James Green sold for fees, were most likely 



244 jay's works. 

man and wife, and may remind us that the law we are consider- 
ing is utterly reckless of the most sacred relations. The pro- 
ceeds of three of the five sold in 1826-7, after deducting fees, 
&c, is $242.50 ; and this sum, according to law, the marshal 
retains till called for ; but if the negroes were free, then, 
there being no claimant, the money can never be called for, and 
becomes the perquisite of office; and the income of the judge 
of course fluctuates according to the number he condemns to 
slavery. Thus does the law literally press upon the marshal 
the wages of unrighteousness — thus does it bribe him to the 
commission of wickedness. In one instance, the receipts of a 
single condemnation were $500, of which the marshal was de- 
prived only by a most extraordinary accident. 

And now let us review the conduct of the Federal Govern- 
ment towards the free colored citizen of any State, who presumes 
to visit the city of "Washington. At the will of a Justice of the 
Peace he is thrown into prison. His jailer, if he possesses the 
humanity and disinterestedness of Mr. Ringgold, may, if he 
pleases, write letters to distant parts of the confederacy, although 
he knows that a favorable answer may keep some hundred dol- 
lars from finding their way into his pocket. If no such answer 
arrives, without any evidence that the letter of inquiry was ever 
received, the poor wretch is condemned as a slave, and the price 
of his bones and muscles is paid to the judge who condemned 
him. 

And by whom is this accursed law kept in force ? By north- 
ern Representatives and Senators in Congress. On the 8th of 
February, 1836, the House of Representatives resolved, that 
" Congress ought not to interfere in any way with slavery in the 
District of Columbia," and no less than eighty -two northern 
men had the hardihood to record their names in favor of the 
resolution. To place, if possible, in a still stronger light, the 
conduct of these men, it may be mentioned that the law we have 
been considering belonged to the code of Maryland at the time 
the District was ceded, and was continued in force by Act of 
Congress. In the meantime, the Legislature of Maryland, com- 
posed of slave-holders, yielding to the spirit of the age, has 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 245 

erased this foul stain from her statute book, while our northern 
Democrats, with liberty and equality forever on their lips, in 
hope of getting a few southern votes for their party, discover 
that Congress ought not to interfere in any way with slavery in 
the District, although it is by the authority of Congress that 
freemen are there converted into slaves. 

"We will now place side by side two advertisements, one pub- 
lished by authority of Congress, in which northern men have 
the majority ; the other by authority of the slave State of Mary- 
land, — the first relating to a woman and infant claiming to be 
free, the other to a man confessing himself a slave. 

" Notice. — Was committed to the jail of Washington County, 
District of Columbia, as a runaway, a negro woman, by the name of 
Polly Leiper, and her infant child William. * * * * Says she 
was set free by John Campbell, of Richmond, Va., in 1818 or 1819. 
The owner of the above-described woman and child, if any, are request- 
ed to come and prove them, and take them away, or they will be sold 
for their jail fees and other expenses, as the law 
directs. Tench Ringgold, 

May 19, 1827. Marshal" 

" Ran away. — Was committed to the jail of Washington County, 
Maryland, on the 24th of December last, a mulatto man who calls him- 
self John McDaniel, about 25 years of age. * * Says he belongs to 
William Hill, living at Falmouth, Va., and was sold to John Daily, 
living somewhere in the South. The owner of the said slave is re- 
quested to come and take him away, or he will be released, according to 
law. Christian Newcomb, Jun., 

December 10, 1827- * Sheriff." 

The endeavors of the Federal Government to secure the 
restoration of fugitive slaves to their masters, are not confined 
either to the District of Columbia, or to the States of this con- 
federacy. Even American diplomacy must be made subservient 
to the interests of the slave-holders, and republican ambassadors 
must bear to foreign courts the wailings of our government for 
I the escape of human property. 

On the 10th of May, 1828, the House of Representatives 
) requested the President 

" To open a negotiation with the British Government, in the view to 
'obtain an arrangement whereby fugitive slaves who have taken refuge 

: 

* Both advertisements are taken from the "Washington Intelligencer. 



246 jay's works. 

in the Canadian provinces of that government, may be surrendered 
by the functionaries thereof to their masters, upon making satisfactory 
proof of their ownership of said slaves." 

Here was a plain, palpable interference in behalf of slavery 
by a government which we are often assured by the slave- 
holders, " has nothing to do with slavery ; " and so tame and 
subservient were the Northern members, that this disgraceful 
resolution was adopted without even a division of the House ! 
At the next session, the impatience of the slave-holders to know 
if Great Britain would restore their slaves who had taken refuge 
in Canada, could brook no longer delay, and the House called 
on the President to inform them of the result .of the negotiation. 
The President immediately submitted a mass of documents to 
the House, from which it appeared that the zeal of the Execu- 
tive, in behalf of " the peculiar institution," had anticipated the 
wishes of the Legislature. Two years before the interference of 
the House, viz., on the 19th of June, 182G, Mr. Clay, Secretary 
of State, had instructed Mr. Gallatin, American Minister in 
London, to propose a stipulation for " a mutual surrender of all 
persons held to service or labor under the laws of either party 
who escape into the territories of the other." Mr. Clay dwelt 
on the number of fugitives in Canada, and desired Mr. Gallatin 
to press on the British Government the consideration that such 
a stipulation would secure to the West India planters the recovery 
of such of their slaves as might take refuge in the American Re- 
public ! 

Surely the Feder/al Government was never intended by its 
founders to act the part of kidnapper for "West India slave- 
holders. 

On the 24th of February, 1827, Mr. Clay again urged Mr. 
Gallatin to procure this stipulation, and informed him that a 
treaty had just been concluded with Mexico, by which that power 
had engaged to restore our runaway slaves* 

On the 5th of July, 1827, Mr. Gallatin communicated to his 
government the answer of the British Minister, that " it was 

*Such a treaty was negotiated, but the Mexican Congress refused to ratify! 
the base compact. 



I 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 247 

utterly impossible for them to agree to a stipulation for the sur- 
render of fugitive slaves." 

Determined not to take no for an answer, Mr. Clay desired 
Mr. Barbour, our then Minister in England, to renew the nego- 
tiation, inasmuch as the escape of slaves into Canada is "a 
growing evil ; " but alas, Mr. Barbour replied, that on broaching 
the subject to the British minister, he had informed him " the 
law of Parliament gave freedom to every slave who effected Ms 
landing on British ground."* To have attempted to march an 
army into Canada, for the purpose of seizing these fugitives, 
would have cost rather more than they were worth. There was, 
however, a territory on our Southern frontier, belonging to a 
power less able than Great Britain to punish aggressions on her 
sovereignty, and hence it is that we are called to consider 

THE INVASION OP FLORIDA, AND DESTRUCTION OF FUGITIVE 
SLAVES BY THE FORCES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 

On the 15 th of March, 1816, Mr. Crawford, Secretary of War, 
addressed a letter to General Jackson, informing him that there 
was a fort in Florida, occupied by between two hundred and fifty 
and three hundred blacks, and that they and the hostile Creek 
Indians were guilty of secret practices to inveigle negroes from 
the frontiers of Georgia, and directing him to call the attention 
of the Commandant at Pensacola to the subject. The Secretary 
added, that should the Commandant decline interfering, and 
Ishould it be determined that the destruction of the negro fort 
does not require the sanction of Congress, means will be promptly 
taken for its reduction. 

General Jackson, however, had before the receipt of this 
Idespatch, " assumed the responsibility " of sending his orders 
^respecting this very fort to Gen. Gaines. 

I _ " If the fort harbors the negroes of our citizens, or of friendly In- 
dians hying within our territory, or holds out inducements to the slaves 
)f our citizens to desert from their owners' service, it must be destroyed. 

* State papers, 2 Sess., 20th Congress, Vol. I. 



248 jay's works. 

Notify the governor of Pensacola of your advance into his territory, and 
for the express purpose of destroying these lawless banditti." The letter 
concludes with directions to restore the stolen negroes to their rightful 
owners. Letter of 8th of April, 1816. 

Owing to some cause not explained, Gen. Gaines did not 
fulfil his instructions ; and a gun boat was sent up the Appala- 
chicola river by order of Commodore Patterson, and on the 
27th of July attacked the fort by firing red-hot shot at it. A 
shot entered the magazine, which exploded. The result is thus 
stated in the official report : 

" Three hundred negroes, men, women and children, and about 
twenty Indians, were in the fort ; of these, two hundred and seventy 
were killed, and the greater part of the rest mortally wounded." 

Commodore Patterson in his letter to the Secretary of the 
Navy, observes : 

" The service rendered by the destruction of this fort, and the band 
of negroes who held it and the country in its vicinity, is of great and 
manifest importance to the a United States, and particularly those States 
bordering on the Creek nation, as it had become a general rendezvous 
for runaway slaves and disaffected Indians — an asylum where they 
found arms and ammunition to protect themselves against their owners 
and the government. This hold being destroyed, they have no longer 
a place to fly to, and will not be so liable to abscond. The force of the 
negroes was daily increasing, and they had commenced several planta- 
tions on the banks of the Appalachicola."* 

"We are not aware that this gallant achievement called forth at 
the time any testimony of approbation from the government. It 
was probably regarded as an unnecessary destruction of prop- 
erty. Gen. Jackson's orders were to restore the negroes "to 
their rightful owners," not to kill them. But times have 
changed ; abolition doctrines are spreading, and hereafter our 
officers, and soldiers, and sailors, may feel some reluctance at 
being sent on kidnapping expeditions. Hence, after the lapse of 
twenty-three years, the government has deemed it good policy 
to evince their estimation of such u services, by rewarding the 

* State papers, 2 Sess., 15th Congress, No. 65. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 249 

heroes of Appalachicola. The following is taken from the 
"Washington Globe : 

"Notice. — The sum of five thousand four hundred and 
sixty-five dollars having been appropriated by an Act of Con- 
gress, passed at the last session, to be distributed as prize money among 
the officers and crews, their, or either of their heirs or legal represen- 
tatives, of the gun boats, numbered 149 and 154, who in the month of 
July, 1816, blew up and destroyed a fort occupied by fugitive negroes 
and Indians, on the river Appalachicola, all persons having claims 
upon the sum so appropriated, are notified to present and prove the 
same without delay at the office of the Fourth Auditor of the Treasury 
Department, in the City of Washington. 

"Fourth Auditor's Office, May 23d, 1839." 

It is now time to advert to one of the most extraordinary 
exploits of American diplomacy, viz. : 



compensation for fugitive slaves obtained by the 
federal government. 

The presence of British armed vessels in our Southern waters, 
during the last war, afforded an opportunity to many of the 
slaves to escape from bondage. In 1814, and while the war 
was raging in all its fury, commissioners were appointed to 
treat of peace, and instructions were given to them as to the 
stipulations to be inserted in the treaty. These instructions 
contain the following remarkable passage : 

" The negroes taken from the Southern States should be returned to 
their owners, or paid for at their full value. If these slaves were con- 
sidered as non-combatants, they ought to be restored : if as property, 
they ought to be paid for." Moreover, this stipulation is expressly 
included "in the conditions on which you are to insist in the proposed 
negotiations." Letter of Instructions from Mr. Monroe, Secretary of 
\State, 28th January, 1814* 

Thus we see that not even the calamities of war could divert 
:he attention of the Federal Government from the peculiar 
interests of the slave-holders. The commissioners were faithful 
o the charge thus given to them : and in the treaty concluded 

* American State papers, Vol. IX, p. 364 
22 



250 jay's works. 

at Ghent, adroitly provided for the restoration of slaves ; and in 
such obscure terms as ultimately secured a far more extensive 
concession than the British negotiators had any intention of 
making. 

The 1st article is as follows: 

" All territory, places, and possessions whatever, taken from either 
party, by the other during the war, or which may be taken after the 
signing of this treaty, shall be restored without delay; and without 
causing any destruction or carrying away of the artillery or other pub- 
lic property originally captured in said torts or places, and which shall 
remain upon the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, or any 
slaves or other private property." 

The treaty was ratified at Washington on the 17th of Febru- 
ary ; and six days after, three commissioners appointed by the 
government appeared in the Chesapeake, authorized to demand 
and receive the slaves on board the British squadron still in our 
waters. 

Captain John Clarelle happened to be at the moment in com- 
mand of the British forces, and he positively refused to give up 
a single fugitive ; contending that the stipulation in the treaty 
related only to slaves " originally captured in forts or places," 
and remaining in such forts or places at the exchange of the rat- 
ifications, and had no reference to slaves who had voluntai*ily 
sought protection on board British vessels. 

A few days after, Admiral Cockburn arrived and a similar 
demand was made upon him. He also refused to surrender any 
fugitives, as such were not included in the treaty, but gave up 
eighty slaves which were found on Cumberland Island at the 
time that place was captured, and who had not been removed 
previous to the exchange of ratifications; this being a case 
directly within the true meaning and intention of the treaty. 
The Secretary of State then applied to the British Charge d' Af- 
faires at Washington, requesting him to direct the Naval Com- I 
manders in the Chesapeake to give up the fugitives on board j 
their vessels ; but Mr. Baker declined interfering, taking the | 
same view of the article as the Admiral had done. In the 
meantime, the squadron had sailed for Bermuda. The Gov- 
ernment, tracking the scent of a fugitive with bloodhound keen- 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 251 

ness, forthwith despatched an agent to Bermuda in pursuit, to 
demand the negroes of the Governor. The worthy Englishman, 
nettled at a requisition so derogatory to the honor of his country, 
replied, " he would rather Bermuda, with every man, woman 
and child in it, were sunk under the sea, than surrender one 
slave that had sought protection under the flag of England." 

The agent, (Thomas Spalding,) nothing daunted, now assumed 
the diplomatist, and addressed a long argumentative despatch to 
Admiral Griffith, commanding on the Bermuda station, demand- 
ing the fugitives, and promising to furnish him with a particular 
list of the slaves claimed, which he expected to receive in a few 
days from the United States. The Admiral very cavalierly 
assured Mr. Spalding that it was quite unnecessary for him to 
wait at Bermuda for the expected document, since thei-e was, 
neither at Bermuda nor any other British island or settlement, 
any authority " competent to deliver up persons, who, during 
the late wars, had placed themselves under the protection of the 
British flag."* 

From British Governors and admirals, our Government now 
turned to the British Cabinet, and -found that there also it was 
held a point of honor to keep faith, even with runaway slaves. 
Lord Castlereagh declared that the government never would 
have assented to a treaty requiring the surrender of persons 
who had taken refuge under the British standard. Again was 
the demand made, and again was it unequivocally rejected. 
But the administration refused to yield, and insisted on a refer- 
ence of the question to the decision of a friendly power, and 
named the Emperor of Russia as umpire. After tedious nego- 
tiation, this point was carried: and in 1818, a convention was 
concluded at London, submitting the true construction of the 
treaty to the Emperor, who decided in favor of the slave- 
i holders. It now became necessary to determine how the num- 
: ber of slaves, and their value, should be ascertained. Another 
I negotiation ensued, which resulted in a second convention, by 
' which it was agreed that each party should appoint a certain 

* State papers, 14th Congress, 2d Session. Senate documents, No. 28. 



252 jay's works. 

number of Commissioners, who should form a Board to sit at 
Washington, to receive and liquidate the claims of the masters. 
But difficulties soon arose. The American Commissioners 
insisted on interest, which the others refused to allow. Negotia- 
tions again commenced, till at last the British Cabinet, wearied 
with the pertinacity of the American Government, and sick of 
the controversy, entered into a third convention, (13th of Nov., 
1826,) by which the enormous sum of one million two hun- 
dred and four thousand dollars was paid and received 
in full of all demands. 

Tims after a persevering negotiation, conducted for twelve 
years, at Washington, in the Chesapeake Bay, at Bermuda, 
at London,and at Petersburg, did our government succeed in 
obtaining most ample compensation for the fugitives. Commis- 
sioners were then appointed to distribute this sum ; and after 
fixing an average value on each slave proved to have been car- 
ried away, it was found that a surplus still remained; and this 
surplus was divided among the masters ! 

Having now seen the success that attended the pursuit of 
fugitive slaves, let us next witness the 

EFFORTS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO RECOVER 
SHIPWRECKED SLAVES. 

Considering the extent of the American slave-trade, it is not 
surprising that our slavers are occasionally driven out of their 
course ; and are sometimes wrecked upon the dangerous reefs 
abounding in the neighboring Archipelago. 

On the 3d of January, 1831, the brig Comet, a regular slaver 
from the District of Columbia, on her usual voyage from Alex- 
andria to New Orleans, with a cargo of one hundred and sixty- 
four slaves, was lost off the island of Abaco. The slaves were 
saved, and carried into New Providence, where they were set at 
liberty by the authorities of the island. A portion of the cargo 
(146 head) was insured at New Orleans for $71,330. 

On the 4th of February, 1839, the brig Encomium, from 
Charleston to New Orleans, with forty-five slaves, was also 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 253 

wrecked near Abaco, and the slaves carried into New Provi- 
dence, where, like their predecessors, they were declared to be 
free. 

In February, 1835, the Enterprise, another slaver from the 
National Domain, on her voyage to Charleston, with seventy- 
eight slaves, was driven into Bermuda in distress. The pas- 
sengers, instead of being thrown into prison, as Bermudians 
would have been in Charleston under similar circumstances, 
were hospitably treated, and permitted to go at large. These 
successive and unexpected transmutations of slaves into free- 
men, roused the ready zeal of the Federal Government. Di- 
rectly on the loss of the Comet, instructions were sent from 
Washington to our Minister, to demand of the British Govern- 
ment the value of the cargo. In 1832, another despatch was 
forwarded on the subject. The instructions were again renewed 
in 1833, the Secretary of State remarking, this case "must be 
brought to a conclusion ; the doctrine that would justify the 
liberation of our slaves, is too dangerous to a large section of 
our country to be tolerated." 

In 1834, fresh instructions were sent, and a demand ordered 
to be made for the value of the slaves in the Encomium. 

In 1835, similar instructions were sent relative to the Enter- 
prise. 

In 1836, the instructions were renewed; the Secretary observ- 
ing to Mr. Stevenson, " In the present state of our diplomatic 
relations with the Government of His Britannic Majesty, the 
most immediately pressing of the matters with which the United 
States Legation at London is now charged, is the claim of cer- 
tain American citizens against Great Britain for a number of 
slaves, the cargoes of three vessels wrecked in British islands 
in the Atlantic." 

From a long and labored communication from Mr. Steven- 
son to Lord Palmerston, we extract the following morceau. 

" The undersigned feels assured that it will only be necessary to 
refer Lord Palmerston to the provisions of the Constitution of the 
United States, and the laws of many of the States, to satisfy him of the 
existence of slavery, and that slaves are there regarded and protected as 
property ; that by these laws, there is in fact no distinction in principle 
22* 



254 jay's works. 

between property in persons and properly in things ; and that the Gov* 
eminent have more than once, in the most solemn manner, determined 
that slaves killed in the service of the United States, even in a state of war, 
were to be regarded as property, and not as persons, and the Government 
held responsible for their value." 

No answer having been vouchsafed to this letter, and the 
argument being exhausted, Mr. Stevenson tried the virtue of a 
diplomatic hint that the United States would go to war for their 
slaves ; expressing his hope in a letter to Lord Palmerston, that 
the British Go /eminent would 

" Not longer consent to postpone the decision of a subject which had 
been for so many years under its consideration ; and the effect of 
which can be none other than to throw not only additional impediments 
in the way of an adjustment, and increase those feelings of dissatisfac- 
tion and imitation which have already been excited ; but by possibility 
tend to disturb and weaken the kind and amicable relations which now 
so happily subsist between the two countries, and on the preservation of 
which, so essentially depend the interests and hapipiness of both." Letter 
of 31st December, 1836. 

The British Cabinet, after long delays, reluctantly consented 
to pay for the cargoes of the Comet and Encomium on the ground 
that at the time the slaves composing them were liberated, sla- 
very still existed in the British West Indies ; but inasmuch as 
the emancipation Act had been .passed before the arrival of the 
Enterprise, her passengers could not be recognized by British 
courts as property, and therefore the government could not and 
would not pay for them. The letter of Lord Palmerston an- 
nouncing this determination, concluded as follows : 

" Slavery being now abolished throughout the British empire, there 
can be no well-founded claim for compensation in respect of slaves, 
who, under any circumstances, may come into British colonies, any j 
more than there would be with respect to slaves brought into the 
United Kingdom." 

This announcement was received in high dudgeon at Wash- 
ington. Mr. Forsyth, the Secretary of State, wrote (27th 
March, 1837) to Mr. Stevenson, that the principles on which the 
claim of the owner of the slaves on board the Enterprise had 
been rejected, "are regarded by the President as inconsistent 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 255 

With the respect due from all foreign powers to the institutions 
of a friendly nation ! " Mr. Van Buren it seems is yet to learn 
that our republican institution of negro slavery, instead of beinc 
regarded with respect, is viewed with scorn and detestation by 
the civilized world. He is not, however, ignorant of the influ- 
ence which his respect for it will have on the next presidential 
election. Mr. Forsyth proceeded : 

" The soundness of the principle is explicitly denied, and the serious 
consequences with which, in the judgment of the President, it is 
fraught to the property and tranquillity of our citizens, call imperatively 
upon him to announce to his majesty's government, immediately and 
solemnly, that its application to them never can be acquiesced in by the 
government of the United States." * * * * » The President 
has been particularly affected by the declaration, that no claim for 
slaves coming into the British dominions, under any circumstances, 
will be entertained by his majesty's government. Althoughlhe Presi- 
dent well knows that such is not the intention of his majesty's o- vern- 
ment, yet this declaration, if not regarded as an invitation, wilf be the 
strongest inducement to the flight or abduction of slaves, by fraud or 
force, from their masters ; and if adhered to, cannot fail to be consid- 
ered, especially by the sufferers from its influence, as an evidence of a 
spirit hostile to the repose and security of the United States." * * 
* * " Irritated by discussion without agreement, discussion will 
be abandoned for retaliation or retortion ; and sooner or 
later, the cordial good will, at present so happily existing between the 
two countries, will be converted into bitter hostility the fore- 
runner of incalculable injuries to both." 

Mr. Stevenson was directed to lay this bullying epistle " in 
extenso " before the British Minister. Lord Palmerston, in his 
reply, did not condescend to notice the threats of Messrs. Van 
Buren and Forsyth, but calmly repeated the assurance, that 

" Slavery being now abolished throughout the British empire, there 
can be no well-founded claim on the part of any foreigner in respect of 
slaves, who, under any circumstances whatever, may come into the 
British colonies, any more than there would be in respect to slaves 
who might come into the United Kingdom." 

The Federal Government did not deem it expedient, on the 
receipt of this despatch, to declare war against Great Britain, 
but preferred making another attempt at negotiation ; and a most 
extraordinary attempt it was. Mr. Stevenson was instructed 



256 jay's works. 

(12th March, 1838) to ascertain whether the British govern- 
ment 

" Are prepared at once to enter upon the negotiation of a convention 
for regulating the disposition of slaves belonging to the United States 
that may be carried by force into the colonies lying contiguous to our 
territories, or driven in by stress of weather, with a view to the pre- 
vention of the ill effects to be apprehended from future collisions upon 
a subject so liable to produce in the people of the respective countries 
a high degree of excitement and irritation. In the meantime, the 
President, anxious to avoid every thing that might tend in the least 
degree to disturb the amicable relations subsisting between the two 
countries, will abstain from taking those steps for the security of 
the rights and property of our citizens which the recent decision of her 
majesty's government, in the absence of any agreement upon the sub- 
ject, would render necessary, until opportunity is offered for receiving 
the answer of her majesty's government, to the application which you 
are hereby directed to make." 

It would be doing injustice to Mr. Van Buren to suppose him 
capable of the weakness of believing that such a proposition 
would be listened to after the reiterated declarations to the con- 
trary by Lord Palmerston. The correspondence it was known 
would be published before the next election ; and the South 
would perceive that the President, although a Northern man, 
had done what he could to sustain " the rights and property " 
of the slave-holders. A reprieve, it will be seen, was granted 
to her majesty's government until an opportunity was afforded 
for receiving its answer. On the 10th of July, 1838, Mr. Stev- 
enson laid before the British minister the terms of the required 
treaty, which were, — 

1st. That Great Britain should "refrain from forcing liberty 
upon such American slaves " as might hereafter be compelled 
to enter British colonial ports. 

2d. That she should prohibit the landing of such slaves in the 
colonies. 

3d. That when unavoidably landed, they should be placed 
under military guard till their owners could re-ship them. 

The answer, big with the fate of Britain, and which was to 
terminate Mr. Van Buren's long-suffering and forbearance, was 
returned on the 10th of July, 1838, — and such an answer! 
The American minister is assured that " an engagement on the 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 257 

part of Great Britain not to force liberty upon American slaves, 
would appear to assume a 'preference to slavery on the part of 
such persons, which is scarcely consistent with the known prin- 
ciples of human nature ; " and moreover, that such engagement 
is wholly unnecessary, since the British law forces no slave to 
leave a master he wishes to serve. But that a law depriving 
American slaves in the British dominions of the right of habeas 
corpus, " would be so entirely at variance with every principle 
of the British Constitution, that no government would venture to 
propose it to Parliament, and no Parliament would agree to adopt 
it." And as to placing American slaves under a military guard, 
that they might be restored to their masters, it would be a duty 
" so repugnant to every feeling of the officers and men of the 
British army, that her majesty's government would in any case 
be extremely unwilling to call upon her majesty's troops to per- 
form it ; and, in the next place, it is doubtful whether the troops 
could be so employed consistently with the law now in force for 
the abolition of the slave-trade, and her majesty's government 
could not propose to Parliament the repeal of that laiv." 

Such was the answer, — and not only has it been received, 
but it has been submitted to Congress ; and yet Mr. Van Buren 
still abstains "from taking those steps for the security of the 
rights and property of our citizens " which the decision of her 
majesty's government renders necessary ! 

Thus for eight successive years has the cabinet at Washington 
been sending instructions to their agents in England to procure 
payment for these cargoes of human flesh : nor has Congress 
been wanting in zeal on the same subject. Tivice has the 
Senate called on the President to report the progress of the 
negotiation. The first call (7th February, 1837) asked for a 
copy of the 

" Correspondence with the Government of Great Britain in relation 
to the outrage committed on our flag, and the rights of our citizens, by 
( the authorities of Bermuda and New Providence, in seizing the slave- 
on board the brigs 'Encomium' and 'Enterprise,' engaged in the 
coasting trade, but which were forced by shipwreck and stress of 
sveather into the ports of those islands." 



258 jay's works. 

The language of this resolution indicates the influence exerted 
by slavery over the Federal Government. Should a murderer 
escape from England and land on our shores, we refuse to sur- 
render him to the justice of his country ; but when the West 
India authorities refuse to deliver two hundred and eighty-seven 
innocent men, women and children, thrown by the tempest under 
their protection, into hopeless, interminable slavery, the Senate 
solemnly pronounce the refusal to be an outrage on our flag, and 
the rights of our citizens. Moreover, the liberation of these 
persons is spoken of as a seizure of them, and the slavers carry- 
ing human cargoes to market, are most audaciously declared to 
have been engaged in the coasting trade ! The real trade in 
which these vessels were engaged, was 

THE AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE UNDER THE PROTECTION AND 
REGULATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 

We shall first exhibit the character and extent of this trade, 
and then show that it is in fact carried on under the protection 
and regulation of the Federal Government. 

The competition of free with slave-labor in the bread-stuffs and 
some other productions of Maryland, Virginia, and North Caro- 
lina, has greatly reduced the value of slaves as laborers in those 
States ; and hence the disposition manifested there some years 
since, to get rid of this unprofitable portion of their population. 
But the rapid extension of the cotton and sugar cultivation in 
the extreme South, together with the settlement of the new 
States of Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas, occa- 
sioned a prodigious demand for slaves ; and the agriculturists of 
Virginia and the neighboring States discovered that their most 
lucrative occupation was that of raising live stock for the South- 
ern and Western markets. In Georgia and South Carolina it 
has also been found more advantageous to export their super- 
numeraries to Mobile, New Orleans, or Natchez, than to employ 
them on their well-stocked plantations. Hence has grown up 
an almost incredible transfer of slaves from the North to the 
South ; and recently a new market has been opened in Texas, 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 259 

giving an additional stimulus to the trade. It is impossible to 
ascertain the exact amount of this trade, as the Secretary of the 
Treasury in his annual report on the commercial statistics of 
the United States, has never included any statements respecting 
this branch of the " coasting trade." But, indeed, the returns 
from the several Custom Houses of the size and value of the 
human cargoes cleared for the Southern ports, if given, would 
afford a very inadequate idea of the extent of the traffic, since it is 
carried on by land as well as by sea. Whole coffles of chained 
slaves are driven long and painful journeys in the interior of the 
Republic, much in the same manner as in the wilds of Africa. 
The Rev. Mr. Dickey in a published letter thus describes a 
coffle he met on the road in Kentucky : 

" I discovered about forty black men all chained together in the 
following manner: each of them was handcuffed, and they were 
arranged in rank and file ; a chain perhaps forty feet long was stretched 
between two ranks, to which short chains were joined, which connected 
with the handcuffs. Behind them were, I suppose, thirty women in 
double rank, the couples tied hand to hand." 

The Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky, in an address, in 
1835, to the churches under their care, speaking of this trade, 
say: 

" Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, 
are torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. These 
acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and agony 
often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim with a trumpet tongue the 
iniquity of our system. There is not a neighborhood where these 
heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road 
that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose 
mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that 
their hearts hold dear." 

J. K. Paulding, the present Secretary of the Navy, gives 
the following picture of a scene he witnessed in Virginia : 

" The sun was shining out very hot, and in turning an angle of the 
I road we encountered the following group : first, a little cart drawn by 
. one horse, in which five or six half naked black children were tumbled 
like pigs together. The cart had no covering, and they seemed to 
have been actually broiled to sleep. Behind the cart marched three 
' ' ack women, with head, neck and breasts uncovered, and without 



260 jay's works. 

shoes or stockings ; next came three men, bareheaded, half naked, and 
chained together ivith an ox-chain. Last of all came a white man — a 
white man, Frank ! — on horseback, carrying pistols in his belt, and 
who, as we passed him, had the impudence to look us in the face -with- 
out blushing. I should like to see him hunted by bloodhounds. At a 
house where we stopped, a little further on, we learned that he had 
bought these miserable beings in Maryland, and was marching them 
in this manner to some of the more southern States. Shame on the 
State of Maryland ! I say — and shame on the State of Virginia, and 
every State through which this wretched cavalcade was permitted to pass. 
Do they expect that such exhibitions will not dishonor them in the eyes of 
strangers, however they may be reconciled to them by education and 
habit V"* 

The annexed picture, it will be perceived, is drawn by a 
southern pencil. 

" Place yourself in imagination for a moment in their condition — 
with heavy galling chains riveted upon your person, half-naked, half- 
starved, your back lacerated with the knotted whip, travelling to a 
region where your condition through time will be second only to the 
wretched creatures in hell. This depiction is not visionary — would to 
God that it was !" Editorial, Maryville (Tennessee) Intelligencer, 4th 
October, 1835. 

* " Letters from the South, written during an excursion in the summer of 
1816." New York, 1817. Vol. I, Letter XI, p. 117- 

It may be thought by some that the elevation to a seat in the Cabinet, of 
a gentleman who expresses himself with so much warmth and fearlessness 
against one of the " peculiar institutions of the South," militates against our 
idea that the influence of the Federal Government is exerted in behalf of 
slavery. Singular as it may appear, the appointment of Mr. Paulding is 
nevertheless strongly corroborative of the opinion we have advanced ; and 
the explanation is at once easy and amusing. The "Letters from the 
South" were reprinted in 1835, and form the fifth and sixth volumes of an 
edition of " Paulding's works." The letter from which we have quoted con- 
sists of fourteen pages, devoted to the subject of slavery. On turning to the 
corresponding letter in the recent edition we find it shrunk to three pages, 
containing no allusion to the internal trade, nor anything else that could of- 
fend the most sensitive Southerner. In the nineteenth letflBr, as printed in 
1817, there is not a word about slavery. In the same letter, as published in 
1835, we meet with the following most wonderful 'prediction — a prediction 
that has lately been cited in the newspapers as a proof of the sagacity and 
foresight of the Secretary of the Navy : — 

" The second cause of disunion will be found in the slave population of 
the South, whenever the misguided, or wilfully malignant zeal of the advo- 
cates of emancipation, shall institute, as it one day doubtless will, a crusade 
against the constitutional rights of the slave-owners, by sending among them 
fanatical agents and fanatical tracts, calculated to render the slaves dis- 
affected, and the situation of the master and his family dangerous ; when ap- 
peals shall be made under the sanction of religion to the passions of these 
ignorant and excited blacks, calculated and intended to rouse their worst 
and most dangerous passions, and to place the very lives of their masters, 
their wives, and their children in the deepest peril; when societies are formed 
in the sister States for the avowed purpose of virtually destroying the value 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 261 

As we are about to enter into particulars respecting the 
American slave-trade, it may not be uninteresting to inquire 
who are its victims. They are native bom Americans. But of 
what color and descent ? This will no doubt be deemed by 
many a very unnecessary question ; and no little indignation 
will probably be excited when we answer that large numbers of 
these victims are white men and women, and the children of 
American citizens. 

People at the North are disposed to be incredulous when they 
hear of white slaves at the South : and yet a little reflection 
would convince them not only that there must be such slaves 
under the present system, but that in process of time a large 
proportion of the slaves must be as white as their masters. 
"Were there no other sources of information respecting the com- 
plexions of the southern slaves, the newspaper notices of run- 



of this principal item in the property of a southern planter ; when it becomes 
a question mooted in the Legislatures of the States, or of the general govern- 
ment, whether the rights of the master over his slave shall be any longer 
recognized or maintained, and when it is at last evident that nothing will 
preserve them but secession, then will certain of the stars of our beautiful 
constellation "start madly from their spheres and jostle the others in their 
wild career." 

In the title of the new edition, the date of the " excursion" is modestly 
omitted, but the reader is not informed that the spirit of prophecy descended 
upon the writer, not while journeying at the South, but while witnessing in 
New York the operations of the predicted societies, and after the city had 
been convulsed by the abolition riots. 

In 1836, Mr. Paulding published his " Slavery in the United States." In 
this work both the Old and New Testament are made to give their sanction 
to slavery. Great Britain, in abolishing slavery in the "West Indies, is 
charged with having " committed robbery under cover of humanity." — (p. 
51.) "A community of free blacks rising among the ruins of States, lords 
Df the soil, smoking with the habitations and blood of their exterminated 
nasters and families," would, we are assured, be only fulfilling " the wishes" 
if the abolitionists. — (p. 56.) The advocates of immediate emancipation 
ecommend, it is asserted, " indiscriminate marriages between the whites 
md blacks," — (p. 61), and well educated respectable females amongst them 
ire apparently anxious " to become the mothers of mulattoes." — (p. 62.) 
Slavery, we are told, "is becoming gradually divested of all its harsh fea- 
ures, and is now only the bugbear of the imagination, — (p. 26;) and Mr. 
'aulding affirms — " In a residence of several years within the District, and 
ji pretty extensive course of travel in some of the southern States, (the ex- 
cursion in the summer of 1816, we suppose,) we never saw or heard of any 
uch instances of cruelty. We saic no chains (!) and heard no stripes." — (p. 

I We trust our readers are now fully convinced of this gentleman's qualifica- 
ions for the office of Secretary of the Navy, and of Mr. Van Buren's con- 
istency in appointing him. 

23 



262 jay's works. 

aways would most abundantly confirm our assertion. Of these 
notices, we give the following as samples. 

" $ 100 Reward. — The above reward will be paid for the apprehen- 
sion of my man William. He is a very bright mulatto — straight, yel- 
lowish hair. I have no doubt he will change his name, and try to pass 
himself for a WHITE MAN, which he may be able to do, unless to a 
close observer. 

August 9. T. S. Pichard." 

" $100 Reward. — Ran away from James Hyhart, Paris, Kentucky, on 
the 29th of June last, the mulatto boy Norton, about fifteen years old, 
a very bright mulatto, and would be taken for a WHITE BOY, if 
not closely examined. His hair is black and straight, &c." — New 
Orleans True American, llth August, 1836. 

" $100 Reward — Will be given for the apprehension of my negro (!) 
Edmund Kenney. He has straight hair, and complexion so nearly 
WHITE, that it is believed a stranger would suppose there was no 
African blood in him. He was with my boy Dick a short time since 
in Norfolk, and offered him for sale, and was apprehended, but escaped 
under pretence of being a WHITE MAN. 

Anderson Bowles. 

Richmond Whig, 6th January, 1836." 

" $50 Reioard will be given for the apprehension and delivery to me 
of the following slaves : Samuel, and Judy his wife, with their four 
children, belonging to the estate of Sacker Dubberly, deceased. 

I will give $10 for the apprehension of William Dubberly, a slave 
belonging to the estate. William is about 19 years old, QUITE 
WHITE, and would not readily be mistaken for a slave. 

John T. Lane. 

Newbern Spectator, 13th March, 1837." 

" $100 Reward. — Ban away from the subscriber, a bright mulatto 
man slave, named Sam. Light sandy hair, blue eyes, ruddy complexion 
—is so WHITE as very easily to pass for a free WHITE MAN. 

Edwin Peck. 

Mobile, April 22, 1837." 

" $50 Reward. — I will give the above reward of fifty dollars for the 
apprehension and securing in any jail, so that I get him again, or de- 
livering to me in Dandridge, E. Tenn., my mulatto boy, named Pres- 
ton, about twenty years old. It is supposed he will try to pass as a 
free WHITE MAN. 

Oct. 12, 1838. John BorER." 

"Ran away from the subscriber, working on the plantation of Col. H. 
Tinker, a bright mulatto boy, named Alfred. Alfred is about eight 
years of age, pretty well grown, has blue eyes, light flaxen hair, skin dis- 
posed to freckle. He will try to pass as FBEE BOBN. 

S. G. Stewart. 

Green County, Alabama." 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 263 

In the New Orleans Bee, of June 22, 1831, P. Bahi adver- 
tises as a runaway, " Maria, with a CLEAR WHITE com- 
plexion ! " 

Mr. Paxton, a Virginia writer, tells us in his work on slavery, 
that "the best blood in Virginia flows in the veins of the 
slaves." 

Dr. Torrey, in his work on domestic slavery in the United 
States, p. 14, says : 

" While at a public house in Fredericktown, there came into the 
bar-room, on Sunday, a decently dressed white man, of quite a light 
complexion, in company with one who was totally black. After they 
went away, the landlord observed that the ichite man was a slave. _ I 
asked him with some surprise how that could be possible ? To which 
he replied, that he was a descendant, by female ancestry, of an African 
slave. He also stated, that not far from Fredericktown, there was a 
slave estate on which there were several white females, of as fair and 
elegant appearance as white ladies in general, held in legal bondage as 
slaves ! ! " 

A Missouri paper, reporting the trial of a slave boy, remarks : 

" All the physiological marks of distinction which characterize the 
African descent, had disappeared. His skin was fair, his hair soft, 
straight, fine and white, his eyes blue, but rather disposed to the hazel- 
nut color, nose prominent, the lips small and well formed, forehead 
high and prominent." 

In the summer of 1835, a slave-holder from Maryland arrested 
as his fugitive a young woman in Philadelphia. A trial ensued, 
when it was most conclusively proved that the alleged slave, 
Mary Gilmore, was the child of poor Irish parents, and had 
not a drop of African blood in her veins. 

A paper printed at Louisville, Ky., the " Emporium," relates 
a circumstance that occurred in that city, in the following terms. 

" A laudable indignation was universally manifested among our 
citizens on Saturday last, by the exposure of a woman and two children 
for sale at public auction, at the front of our principal tavern. The 
woman and children were as white as any of our citizens: indeed, 
we scarcely ever saw a child with a fairer or clearer complexion than 
the younger one." Niles's Register, June, 1821. 

Mr. Niles tells us, in his Register, that Mr. Calhoun, the late 
Vice President, had related to him the case of a man " placed 



264 jay's works. 

on the stand for sale as a slave, whose appearance, in all re- 
spects, gave him a better claim to the character of a WHITE 
MAN, than most persons so acknowledged could show." Reg- 
ister, 25th Oct. 1834. 

We will now attempt to give the reader some idea of the 
extent of the trade — a trade in which human beings of every 
shade, from the purest white to the deepest black, are made 
articles of merchandise, and treated with cruelty little if any 
less than that which has made the African slave-trade the exe- 
cration of the civilized world. 

" Dealing in slaves," says the Baltimore Register, " has become a 
large business ; establishments are made in several places in Maryland 
and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle : these places of deposit 
are strongly built, and well supplied with iron thumb-screws and gags, 
and ornamented with cowskins and other whips, oftentimes bloody." 

The advertisements of the Baltimore traders show that the 
Maryland Colonization Society, iu their endeavors to suppress 
the slave-trade, may find a field for their labors less distant than 
the coast of Africa. We annex some samples. 

"Austin Wood folk, of Baltimore, wishes to inform the slave-holders 
of Maryland and Virginia, that their friend still lives to give cash and" 
the highest price for negroes," &c. 

"General Slave Agency Office. — Gentlemen planters from the 
South, and others who wish to purchase negroes, would do well to give I 
me a call. 

Lewis Scott." 

"Cash for two hundred Negroes. — The highest cash prices will be 
paid for negroes of both sexes, by application to me or my agent, at 
Booth's Garden. 

Hope H. Slater." 

"For New Orleans. — A coppered, copper-fastened packet-brig, 
Isaac Franklin, will sail on the 1st of February, for Baltimore. Those 
having servants to ship will do well by making early application to 
James F. Purvis," &c. 

Human flesh is now the great staple of Virginia. In the 
Legislature of this State, in 1832, Thomas Jefferson Ran- 
dolph declared that Virginia had been converted into " one 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 265 

grand menagerie, where men are reared for the market Mice oxen 
for the shambles." This same gentleman thus compared the 
foreign with the domestic traffic. 

" The trader (African) receives the slave, a stranger in aspect, lan- 
guage, and manner, from the merchant who brought him from the 
interior. But here, sir, individuals whom the master has known from 
infancy — whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of 
childhood — who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, 
lie tears from the mother's arms, and sells into a strange country, among 
a strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters. In my opinion it is much 



Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, in his speech in the Legislature 
of that State, January 18, 1831, (see Richmond Whig,) says: 

" The legal maxim of partus sequitur ventrem is coeval with the ex- 
istence of the rights of property itself, and is founded in wisdom and 
justice. It is only on the justice and inviolability of this maxim, that 
the master foregoes the service of the female slave, has her nursed and 
attended during the period of her gestation, and raises the helpless 
and infant offspring. The value of the property justifies the expense ; 
and I do not hesitate to say, that in its increase consists much of our 
wealth." 

Professor Dew, now President of the College of William 
and Mary, Virginia, in his review of the debate in the Virginia 
Legislature, 1831-2, speaking of the revenue arising from the 
trade, says : 

" A full equivalent being thus left in the place of the slave, this em- 
igration becomes an advantage to the State, and does not check the 
black population as much as at first view we might imagine, because it 
furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to the negroes, to 
encourage breeding, and to cause the greatest number possible to be 
raised. * * Virginia is, in fact, a negro-raising State for other 
States." 



Mr. C. F. Mercer asserted in the Virginia Convention of 



1729: 



" The tables of the natural growth of the slave population demon- 
strate, when compared with the increase of its numbers in the Com- 
monwealth for twenty years past, that an annual revenue of not less 
than a million and a half of dollars is derived from the exportation of 
a part of this population." Debates, p. 99. " 

23* 



2G6 jay's works. 

Professor E. A. Andrews gives a conversation lie had with a 
trader on board a steamboat on the Potomac, in 1835. 

" In selling his slaves, N assures me he never separates fami- 
lies ; but that in purchasing them be is often compelled to do so, for 
that his business is to purchase, and he must take such as are in the 
market. Do you often buy the wife without the husband ? Yes, very 
often ; and frequently, too, they sell me the mother, while they keep 
the children. I have often known them take away the infant from the 
mother's breast, and keep it, while they sold her. Children from one to 
eighteen months old, are now worth about one hundred dollars." * 

The town of Petersburg, in Virginia, seems to enjoy a large 
share of this commerce, judging from the advertisements of its 
merchants. 

" Cash for Negroes. — The subscribers are particularly anxious to 
make a shipment of negroes shortly. All persons who have slaves to 
part with, will do well to call as soon as possible. 

Overly & Saunders." 

" The subscriber being desirous of making another shipment by the 
Brig Adelaide, to New Orleans, on the first of March, will give a good 
market price for fifty negroes, from ten to thirty years old. 

Henry Davis." 

" The subscriber wishes to purchase one hundred slaves, of both 
sexes, from the age of ten to thirty, for which he is disposed to give 
much higher prices than have heretofore been given. He will call on 
those living in the adjacent counties to see any property. 

Ansley Davis." 

But of all the Virginia merchants, Mr. Collier, of Richmond, 
seems to be the most enterprising. We give extracts from his 
Notice : 

"Notice. — This is to inform my former acquaintances, and the public 
generally, that I yet continue in the SLAVE-TRADE, at Richmond, 
Virgiiiia, and will at all times buy and give a fair market price for 
young negroes. Persons in this State, Maryland, or North Carolina, 
wishing to sell lots of negroes, are particularly requested to forward 
their wishes to me at this place. Persons wishing to purchase lots of 
negroes, are requested to give me a call, as I keep constantly on hand 
at this place, a great many for sale ; and have at this time the use of 
one hundred young negroes, consisting of boys, young men, and girls. 
I will sell at all times, at a small advance on cost, to suit purchasers. 

* Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States, p. 147. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 267 

I have comfortable rooms, with a jail attached, for the reception of the 
negroes ; and persons coming to this place to sell slaves, can be accom- 
modated, and every attention necessary will be given to have them 
well attended to ; and when it may be desired, the reception of the 
company of gentlemen dealing in slaves will conveniently and atten- 
tively be received. My situation is very healthy and suitable for the 
business. Lewis A. Collier." 

Joseph Wood, of Hamburg, South Carolina, a "gentleman 
dealing in slaves," advertises that he " has on hand a likely 
parcel of Virginia negroes, and receives new supplies every fif- 
teen days." 

" 120 Negroes for sale. — The subscriber has just arrived from Pe- 
tersburg, Virginia, with one hundred and twenty likely young negroes, 
of both sexes, and every description, which he offers for sale on the 
most reasonable terms. The lot now on hand consists of plough-boys, 
several likely and well-qualified house servants, of both sexes, several 
women with small children, small girls, suitable for nurses, and several 

SMALL BOYS WITHOUT THEIR MOTHERS. BENJAMIN DAVIS. 

Hamburg, S. C, Sept. 28, 1838." 

And what are the pecuniary results of this commerce ? Mr. 
Mercer, as we have seen, estimated the annual revenue to Vir- 
ginia from the export of human flesh, at one million and a half 
of dollars. But this was in 1829, before the trade had reached 
its present palmy state. " The Virginia Times," in 1836, in an 
article on the importance of increasing the banking capital of 
the Commonwealth, estimates the number of slaves exported 
for sale the " last twelve months," at forty thousand ; each 
slave averaging six hundred dollars, and thus yielding a capital 
of twenty-four millions, of which the editor thinks at least 
thirteen millions might be contributed for banking purposes.* 

In 1837, a committee, appointed at a public meeting of the 
citizens of Mobile, on the subject of the existing pecuniary 
pressure, in their report stated : 

" So large has been the return of slave labor, that purchases by 
Alabama, of that species of property from other States since 1833, 
have amounted to ten millions of dollars annually." 

* Niles's Register. 



268 jay's works. 

Let us now visit the " Metropolis of the Nation," the very 
heart of this mighty commerce in the bodies and souls of men. 
The District of Columbia, from its relative situation to the 
breeding States, forms a convenient depot for the negroes, pre- 
vious to their exportation ; and the non-interference of Congress 
gives the traders " under the exclusive jurisdiction " of the Fed- 
eral Government, as unlimited power over the treatment and 
stowage of their human cargoes, as their brethren enjoy on the 
coast of Guinea. 

Hence large establishments have grown up upon the national 
domain, provided with prisons for the safe-keeping of the negroes 
till a full cargo is procured ; and should at any time the factory 
prisons be insufficient, the public ones, erected by Congress, are 
at the service of the dealers, and the United States Marshal 
becomes the agent of the slave-trader ! 

It must be admitted that the following pictures of the scenes 
witnessed in the District of Columbia, are drawn by impartial 
hands. So long ago as 1802, the Grand Juxy of Alexandria, 
complaining of the trade, remarked : 

" These dealers in the persons of our fellow-men collect within this 
District, from various parts, numbers of these victims of slavery, and 
lodge them in some place of confinement until they have completed 
their numbers. They are then turned out into our streets, and exposed 
to view loaded with chains, as though they had committed some heinous 
offence against our laws. We consider it as a grievance, that citizens 
from a distant part of the United States should be permitted to come 
within the District and pursue a traffic fraught with so much misery to 
a class of beings entitled to our protection by the laws of justice and 
humanity ; and that the interposition of civil authority cannot be had 
to prevent parents being wrested from their offspring, and children 
from their parents, without respect to the ties of nature. We consider 
these grievances demanding Legistative redress " — that is, redress by 
Congress. 

In 181 G, Judge Morell, of the Circuit Court of the United 
States, hi his charge to the Grand Jury of Washington, observed, 
speaking of the slave-trade : 

" The frequency with which the streets of the city had been crowded 
with manacled captives, sometimes on the Sabbath, could not fail to 
shock the feelings of all humane persons." 






ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 269 

The same year, John Randolph moved in the House of 
Representatives for a committee 

" To inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic of 
slaves carried on, in, and through the District of Columbia, and report 
■whether any or what measures are necessary for putting a stop to the 
same." 

The motion was adopted ; had it been made twenty years 
later, it would, under the rules of the House, have been laid on 
the table, " and no further action had thereon." 

The Alexandria Gazette of June 22d, 1827, thus describes 
the scenes sanctioned by our professedly republican and Chris- 
tian Legislature : 

tl Scarcely a week passes without some of these wretched creatures 
being_ driven through our streets. After having been confined, and 
sometimes manacled in a loathsome prison, they are turned out in pub- 
He view to take their departure for the South. The children and 
some of the women are generally crowded into a cart or wan-on, while 
others follow on foot, not unfrequently handcuffed and chained together. 

I Here you may behold fathers and brothers leaving behind them the 
dearest objects of affection, and moving slowly along in the mute agony 

j of despair — there the young mother sobbing over the infant whose 
innocent smiles seem but to increase her misery. From some you will 
hear the burst of bitter lamentation, while from others, the loud hysteric 
laugh breaks forth, denoting still deeper agony." 

In 1828, a petition for the suppression of this trade was pre- 
sented to Congress, signed by more than one thousand inhabitants 
of this District. 

In 1829, the Grand Jury of "Washington made a communica- 
tion to Congress, in which they say : 



" Provision ought to be made to prevent purchasers, for the purpose 
jf removal and transportation, from making the cities of the District, 
lepots for the imprisonment of the slaves they collect. The manner 
n which they are brought and confined in these places, and carried 
through our streets, is necessarily such as to excite the most painful 
jeehngs. It is believed that the whole community would be gratified 
py the interference of Congress for the suppression of these receptacles, 
ind the exclusion of this disgusting traffic from the District." 

■ In 1830, the " Washington Spectator " thus gave vent to its 
ndignation. 

"•The slave-trade in the Capital. — Let it be known to the citizens of 
unenca, that at the very time when the procession which contained 



270 jay's works. 

the President of the United States and his Cabinet was marching in 
triumph to the Capitol, another kind of procession was marching 
another way ; and that consisted of colored human beings, handctiffed 
in pairs, and driven along by what had the appearance of a man on 
horseback ! A similar scene was repeated on Saturday last ; a drove, 
consisting of males and females, chained in couples, starting from Roly's 
tavern on foot for Alexandria, where with others they are to embark 
on board a slave-ship in waiting to convey them to the South. Where 
is the O'Connell in this Republic that will plead for the emancipation 
of the District of Columbia ? " 

The advertisements of the dealers indicate the extent of the 

traffic. The National Intelligencer of the 28th of March, 

183G, printed at Washington, contained the following adver- 
tisments : 

"Cash for jive hundred Negroes, including both sexes, from ten to 
twenty-five years of age. Persons having likely servants to dispose 
of, will find it their interest to give us a call, as we will give higher 
prices in cash than any other purchaser who is now or may hereafte* 
come into the market. 

Franklin & Amfield, Alexandria." 

" Cash for three hundred Negroes. — The highest cash price will be 
given by the subscriber, for negroes of both sexes, from the ages of 
twelve to twenty-eight. 

William H. Williams, Washington." 

"Cash for four hundred Negroes, including both sexes, from twelve 
to twenty-five years of age. 

James H. Birch, Washington City." 

" Cash for Negroes. — We will at all times give the highest prices 
in cash for likely young negroes of both sexes, from ten to thirty years 
of age. 

J. W. Neal & Co., Washington." 

Here we find three traders in the District, advertising in onel 
day for twelve hundred negroes, and a fourth offering to buy an 
indefinite number. 

In a later number of the Intelligencer, we find the following 

"Cash for Negroes. — I will give the highest price for likely ne 
groes from ten to twenty-five years of age. 

George Kephart." 

" Cash for Negroes. — I will give cash and liberal prices for AN' 
number of young and likely negroes, from eight to forty years of ag(f 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 271 

Persons having negroes to dispose of will find it to their advantage to 
give rne a call at my residence on the corner of Seventh street and 
Maryland Avenue, and opposite Mr. William's private jail. 

William H. Richards." 

" Cash for Negroes. — The subscriber wishes to purchase a number 
of Negroes for the Louisiana and Mississippi market. Himself or an 
agent at all times can be found at his jail, on Seventh street. 

Wm. H. Williams." 

The unhappy beings purchased by these traders in human 
flesh, men and women, and children of eight years old, are sent 
to the South, either over land in coffl.es, or by sea, in crowded 
slavers. Fostered by Congress, these traders lose all sense of 
shame ; and we have in the National Intelligencer the following 
announcement of the regular departure of three slavers, belong- 
ing to a single factory. 

"Alexandria and Neio Orleans Packets. — Brig Tribune, Samuel C. 
Bush, master, will sail as above on the 1st of January — Brig Isaac 
Franklin, Wm. Smith, master, on the loth of January — Brig Uncas, 
Nath. Boush, master, on the 1st of February. They will continue to 
leave this port on the 1st and 15th of each month, throughout the ship- 
ping season. Servants that are intended to be shipped, will at any time 
be received for safe-keeping at twenty-five cents a day. 

John Amfield, Alexandria." 

This infamous advertisement of the regular sailing of three 
slavers, with the offer of the use of the factory prison, appears 
in one of the principal journals of the United States. Its pro- 
prietor has several times been chosen printer to Congress, and 
there is no reason for believing that he has ever lost the vote of 
a northern member for this prostitution of his columns. 

But the climax of infamy is still untold. This trade in blood ; 
Lhis buying, imprisoning, and exporting of boys and girls eight 
jyears old ; this tearing asunder of husbands and wives, parents 
jand children, is all legalized in virtue of authority delegated by 
.Congress ! ! The 249th page of the laws of the city of Wash- 
ington is polluted by the following enactment, bearing date 28th 
!July, 1838 : 

" For a license to trade or traffic in slaves for profit, four hundred 
lollars." l 



272 jay's works. 

A terrific feature of this trade is the mortality it occasions. 
A writer in the New Orleans Argus of 1830, in an article on 
the sugar cultivation, thus coolly estimates one item of expen- 
diture. 

" The loss by death in bringing slaves from a northern climate, 
which our planters are under the necessity of doing, is not less than 

TWEXTY-FIVE PER CEXT." 

If the change of climate be thus fatal, then those who survive 
this change must, of course, be deemed more valuable, as the 
planters will run less hazard in buying them after having be- 
come acclimated. Now what language do southern advertise- 
ments hold on this point ? "We have of course room for only a 
few specimens, but they attest the superior value attached to 
acclimated negroes, and of course the loss of life attributed to 
" bringing slaves from a northern climate." 

" I offer my plantation for sale. Also seventy-five acclimated 
negroes. O. B. Cobb. 

Vicksburg Register, Dec. 27, 1838." 

" I will sell my Old River plantation, near Columbia, in Arkansas, 
also one hundred and thirty acclimated negroes. Bex. Hughes. 

Port Gibson, \Uh Jan." 

" Probate Sale. — Will be offered for sale at public auction to the 
highest hidder one hundred and thirty acclimated slaves. 

G. W. Keetox, 
Judge of the Parish of Concordia, La. 
March 22, 1837." 

General Felix Houston advertises in the Natchez Courier, 
April 6th, 1838, " Thirty very fine acclimated negroes." 

But the waste of life in the process of acclimation, is but a 
portion of the mortality caused by this murderous traffic. If we 
call to mind the crowded slavers — the chained coffles — the 
dreary journeys of hundreds of miles — the forced separation of 
husbands and wives, parents and children — the broken hearts 
and fevered brains of the helpless victims, we cannot question 
that the sufferings of multitudes are shortened by a premature 
death. We could detail various suicides, induced by the horrible 
anticipation of this loathsome transfer, but one shall suffice, and 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 273 

that related by the present Secretary of the Navy. This 
gentleman, in his southern excursion, fell in company with a 
coffle-driver, and in the first (not the last) editions of his letters 
from the South, gives the confessions made by the wretch him- 
self in his presence. 

" All along the road, it seems, he made it his business to inquire 
■where lived a man who might be tempted to become a party in this 
accursed traffic ; and when lie had got some half dozen of these poor 
creatures, he tied their hands behind their backs, and drove them three 
or four hundred miles or more, bareheaded and half naked, through 
the burning southern sun. ' I made one bad purchase though,' con- 
tinued he, ' I bought a young mulatto girl, a lively creature, a great 
bargain. She had been the favorite of her master, who had lately 
married. The difficulty was to get her to go, for the poor creature 
loved her master. However, I swore most bitterly I was only going to 

take her to her mother's at , and she went with me, though she 

seemed to doubt me very much. But when she discovered, at last, 
that we were out of the State, I thought she would go mad, and, in 
fact, the next night she drowned herself in the river close by. I lost a 
good five hundred dollars by this foolish trick.' " Vol. I, p. 121.* 

We now put it to the consciences of our readers, if the facts 
developed in the preceding pages do not amply justify the fol- 
lowing pregnant remarks of the editor of a late New Orleans 
Journal : 

" The United States law (prohibiting the African slave-trade,) may, 
and probably does put millions into the pockets of the people living 
between the Roanoke and Mason and Dixon's line ; still we think it 
would require some casuistry to show that the present slave-trade from 
that quarter is a whit better tJiftn the one from Africa." New Orleans 
Courier, 15th Feb. 1839. 

Such is the character and extent of the American slave-trade, 
impudently and wickedly called by the Senate, " the coasting 
trade," — a trade protected and regulated by the very govern- 
ment which in the Treaty of Ghent, with wonderful assurance, 
declared that " the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the prin- 
i ciples of justice and humanity." 

The government may be fairly said to protect the trade, when 
, it refuses to exercise its constitutional power to suppress it. 

*It was not, it would seem, till the honorable Secretary turned politician, 
• that he discovered that slavery is now " only the bugbear of the imagina- 
tion." 

24 



274 jay's works. 

The very fact that slave-traders are licensed in the District, is a 
full and complete acknowledgment that there is authority com- 
petent to forbid their nefarious business. The continuance of 
the traffic under the immediate and " exclusive jurisdiction" of 
the National Government, stamps with sin and disgrace every 
member of Congress who assents to it ; and more especially, 
and with peculiar infamy, those northern members who, for 
party purposes, vote that " Congress ought not in any way to in- 
terfere with slavery in the District of Columbia." 

But we are constantly told by the apologists of slavery that 
the American slave-trade is beyond the constitutional control of 
the Federal Government; yet that government abolished the 
African slave-trade, and no human being ever questioned its 
right to do so. But whence was that right derived ? Solely 
from the 8th Section of the 1st Article of the Constitution, viz. : — 

" Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign na- 
tions, and among the several States." 

In virtue of this delegation of power Congress has made it a 
capital crime to carry on commerce in African slaves. Now 
this legislative prohibition of the traffic is constitutional, is 
proved by the highest possible authority, even the Constitution 
itself; for that instrument, after giving Congress power to regu- 
late commerce with foreign nations, restricts it from abolishing 
the African slave-trade before the expiration of twenty years.* 
To regulate, we are told, does not include the power to destroy ; 
yet it seems the power to regulate commerce with foreign na- 
tions does include the power to interdict an odious, cruel, and 
wicked branch of it. By what logic then will it be shown that 
the power to regulate the commerce among the several States, 

* The phraseology of this restriction shows that it was intended to limit 
the power to regulate commerce as well " among the several States" as with 
foreign nations. " The migration, or importation of such person as any of 
the existing States shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by 
the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight." — 
Art. 1, Sec. 9. If any State should think proper to admit slaves migrating 
from another State, it was not to be restrained from doing so till 1808. If it 
should think proper to import slaves from a foreign country, it might do so, 
notwithstanding the wishes of Congress, till the same period. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 275 

does not include the power to interdict a traffic in men, women, 
and children ? Is it more wicked, more base, more cruel, to 
traffic in African savages than in native born Americans — in 
wniTE men, and women, and children — in the offspring of our 
own citizens, and notunfrequently, of very distinguished citizens ? 
Yet it is this abominable commerce that our government fosters 
and protects. We have seen its watchful guardianship over 
this trade in its unceasing endeavors to obtain compensation from 
Great Britain for two hundred and eighty-seven slaves thrown 
by the winds and waves under her protection. Mr. Van Buren, 
our Minister in England, in an official note on this subject, (Feb. 
25, 1832,) remarked:— 

" The Government of the United States respecting the actual and 
unavoidable condition of things at home, while it most sedulously and 
rigorously guards against the further introduction of slaves, protects at 
the same time by reasonable laws the rights of the owners of that spe- 
cies of property in the States where it exists, and permits its transfer 
coastwise from one of these States to another, under suitable re- 
strictions to prevent the fraudulent introduction of foreign slaves." 

By the act of Congress of March 2d, 1807, masters of vessels 
under forty tons burden, are forbidden to transport coastwise 
from one port to another in the United States any person of 
color to be sold or held as a slave, under the penalty of $800 
for each slave so transported. 

By the same act, masters of vessels, over forty tons burden, 
sailing coastwise from one port to another, and intending to 
transport persons of color to be sold or held as slaves, must first 
make out duplicate manifests, specifying the names, age, sex, 
and stature of the persons transported, and the names and resi- 
dence of their owner or shipper. These manifests are to be 
delivered to the collector of the port, who is to retain one and 
return the other to the master, with -" a permit " endorsed on it, 
"authorizing him to proceed to the port of destination." K the 
' master presumes to transport a slave without such permit, not 
1 only is the vessel forfeited, but the master is to pay a penalty of 
$1000 for each slave shipped. On the arrival of the vessel at 
the port of destination, the manifest, with the permit, is to be 
: handed to the collector, who thereupon is to grant a "permit" 



276 jay's works. 

for the landing of the slaves, and if any are landed without such 
permit, the master forfeits one thousand dollars. So it seems 
Congress may prohibit the slave-trade in vessels under forty 
tons ; but according to northern politicians, it would be uncon- 
stitutional to prohibit it in vessels over forty tons ; and according 
to the slave-holders, such a prohibition would cause a dissolution 
of the Union ! But alas ! the permission, regulation, and pro- 
tection of this traffic is in perfect keeping with 



THE DUPLICITY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN REGARD 
TO THE SUPPRESSION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 

The great straggle for the abstract principles of human lib- 
erty in which our fathers engaged with so much zeal, had, at 
the close of the revolutionary war, excited a very general con- 
viction of the injustice of slavery. When the convention 
appointed to form a Federal Constitution assembled, the north- 
ern and many of the southern delegates were disposed to give 
the new government such unqualified power over the commerce 
of the nation, as would enable it to abolish a traffic no less at 
variance with our republican professions than with the precepts 
of humanity and religion. A portion of the southern delegates, 
however, insisted on a temporary restriction of this power as 
the price of their adhesion to the Union ; and their threat of 
marring the beauty, symmetry, and strength of the fair fabric 
about to be erected, by withdrawing from it the support of the 
States they represented, unfortunately induced the convention to 
yield to their wishes, and to insert in the Constitution a clause 
restraining Congress from abolishing the African slave-trade | 
for twenty years. Mr. Madison has left us the following his- 
tory of this iniquitous clause. 

" The southern States would not have entered into the union of 
America without the temporary permission of that trade. The gentle- 
men from South Carolina and Georgia argued in this manner : ' We 
have now liberty to import this species of property, and much of the 
property now possessed has been purchased, or otherwise acquired in 
contemplation of improving it by the assistance of imported slaves. 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 277 

What would be the consequence of hindering us from it ? The slaves 
of Virginia would rise in value, and we should be obliged to go to 
your markets.' " Debates in Virginia Convention. 

We have here the solution of much contradictory action on 
the part of slave-holders in regard to this trade. It seems to 
have been early discovered that its abolition would be advan- 
tageous to the slave-breeders, but not to the slave-buyers. 
Owing to climate, soil, and productions, slave-labor is less prof- 
itable in Maryland and Virginia than in the more southern 
States ; hence the greater demand for this labor in the latter 
States has, since the cessation of importation, caused a constant 
influx of slaves from the former. The breeders in Maryland 
and Virginia have, for the most part, striven in good faith for 
the total suppression of the African trade ; while those who 
originally refused to enter the Union unless permitted, for at 
least twenty years, to import their slaves directly from Africa, 
hove since evinced very little desire to secure to their neighbors 
the monopoly of the market. 

Whenever the opponents of abolition find it convenient to re- 
fer to the action of the Federal Government on the subject of 
slavery, they laud and magnify its horror of the African slave- 
trade, and exultingly point to the law of Congress, branding it 
with the penalties of piracy. And yet we are inclined to believe 
that the conduct of our government in relation to this very sub- 
ject, is one of the foulest stains attached to our national admin- 
istration. Has the trade been suppressed ? Has the Federal 
Government in good faith endeavored to suppress it ? These 
are important questions, and we shall endeavor to solve them by 
an appeal to facts and official documents. 

In a debate in Congress in 1819, Mr. Middleton, of South 
Carolina, stated that in his opinion, 13,000 Africans were annu- 
ally smuggled into the United States. Mr. Wright, of Virginia, 
•estimated the number at 15,000. The same year, Judge Story, 
lof the Supreme Court of the United States, in a charge to a 
grand jury, thus expresses himself: — 



" We have but too many proofs from unquestionable sources, that 
t (the African trade) is still carried on with all the implacable feroci- 

24* 



278 jay's works. 

ty and insatiable rapacity of former times. Avarice lias grown more 
subtle in its evasions, and watches and seizes its prey with an appetite 
quickened rather than suppressed by its guilty vigils. American citi- 
zens are steeped to their very mouths (I can scarcely use too bold a 
figure,) in this stream of iniquity." 

On the 22d of January, 1811, the Secretary of the Navy 
wrote to the commanding naval officer at Charleston : 

" I hear, not without great concern, that the law prohibiting the im- 
portation of slaves has been violated in frequent instances, near St. 
Mary's, since the gun-boats have been withdrawn from that station." 

On the 14th of March, 1814, the collector of Darien, Georgia, 
thus wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury : 

" I am in possession of undoubted information, that African and 
West India negroes are almost daily illicitly introduced into Georgia, 
for sale or settlement, or passing through it to the territories of the 
United States, for similar purposes. These facts are notorious, and it 
is not unusual to sec such negroes in the streets of St. Mary's ; and such 
too, recently captured by our vessels of war, and ordered for Savan- 
nah, were illegally bartered by hundreds in that city, for this bartering 
(or bonding, as it is called, but in reality selling,*) actually took place 
before any decision had passed by the court respecting them. I can- 
not but again express to you, sir, that these irregularities and mockings 
of the laws by men who understand them, are such that it requires the 
immediate interposition of Congress to effect the suppression of this 
traffic ; for as things are, should a faithful officer of the Government 
apprehend such negroes, to avoid the penalties imposed by the laws, 
the proprietors disclaim them, and some agent of the Executive demands 
a delivery of the same to him, ivho may employ them as he pleases, or ef- 
fect a sale of them by ivay of bond for restoration of the negroes when 
legally called on so to do, which bond is understood to be forfeited, as the 
amount of the bond is so much less than the value of the property. 
After much fatigue, peril, and expense, eighty-eight Africans are seized 
and brought to the surveyor at Dai'ien ; they are demanded by the 
Governor's agent. Notwithstanding the knowledge which his excellen- 
cy had that these very Africans were some weeks within six miles of his 
excellency's residence, there was no effort, no stir made by him, his 
agents or subordinate state officers, to carry the laws into execution ; 
but no sooner was it understood that a seizure had been effected by an 
officer of the United States, than a demand is made for them ; and it 
is not difficult to perceive, that the very aggressors may, by a forfeiture 
of the mock bond, be again placed in possession of the smuggled prop- 
erty." 

In 1817, General David B. Mitchell, Governor of Georgia, 
resigned the Executive chair, and accepted the appointment, 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 279 

under the Federal Government, of Indian Agent at the Creek 
Agency. He was afterwards charged with being concerned, in 
the winter of 1817 and 1818, in the illegal importation of Afri- 
cans. The documents in suppoi't of the charge, and those also 
which he offered to disprove it, were placed by the President 
in the hands of Mr. Wirt, the Attorney- General of the United 
States, who, on the 21st of January, 1821, made a report on 
the same. From this report, it appears that no less than ninety- 
four Africans were smuggled into Georgia, and carried to 
Mitchell's residence. Mr. Wirt concludes his report with the 
expression of his conviction, 

" That Gen. Mitchell is guilty of having prostituted his power as 
j Agent for Indian Aifairs at the Creek Agency, to the purpose of aid- 
ing and assisting in a conscious breach of the Act of Congress of 1807, 
i in prohibition of the slave-trade, and this from mercenary motives."* 

On the 22d of May, 1817, the Collector at Savannah wrote 
to the Secretary of the Treasury : 

" I have just received information from a source on which I can im- 
plicitly rely, that it has already become the practice to introduce into 
the State of Georgia, across St. Mary's River, from Amelia Island, E. 
1 Florida, Africans who have been carried into the port of Ferdinanda. 
It is further understood that the evil will not be confined altogether to 
Africans, but will be extended to the worst class of West India slaves." 

Captain Morris, of the Navy, informed the Secretary of the 
Navy, 18th of June, 1817 : 

" Slaves [are smuggled in through the numerous inlets to the west- 
ward, where the people are but too much disposed to render every possible 
assista7ice. Several hundred slaves are now in Galveston, and persons 
have gone from New Orleans to purchase them." 

On the 17th of April, 1818, the Collector at New Orleans 
wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury : 

" No efforts of the officers of the customs alone can be effectual in 
preventing the introduction of Africans from the westward : to put a 
stop to that traffic, a naval force suitable to those waters is indispensa- 
ble ; and vessels captured with slaves ought not to be brought into this 
port, but to some other in the United States, for adjudication." 

* Senate Papers, 1st Session, 17th Cong., No. 93. 



280 jay's -works. 

"We may learn the cause of this significant hint, from a com- 
munication made the 9th of July, in the same year, to the Secre- 
tary, by the Collector at Nova-Iberia. 

" Last summer I got out State warrants, and had negroes seized to 
the number of eighteen, which were part of them stolen out of the 
custody of the coroner ; the balance were condemned by the District 
Judge, and the informers received their part of the net proceeds from 
the State Treasurer. Five negroes that were seized about the same 
time, were tried at Opelousa in May last, by the same judge. He 
decided that some Spaniards that were supposed to have set up a sham 
claim, stating that the negroes had been stolen from them on the high 
seas, ( ! ! ) should have the negroes, and that the persons who seized 
them should pay half the costs, and the State of Louisiana the other. 
This decision had such an effect as to render it almost impossible for 
me to obtain any assistance in that part of the country." 

The Secretary of the Treasury, in a letter to the Speaker of 
the House of Representatives, 20th January, 1819, remarked : 

" It is understood that proceedings have been instituted under the 
State authorities, which have terminated in the sale of persons of color 
illegally imported into the States of Georgia and Louisiana, during the 
years 1817 and 1818. There is no authentic copy of the acts of the 
Legislatures of these States upon this subject in this department, but it 
is understood that in both States, Africans and other persons of color, 
illegally imported, are directed to he sold for the benefit of the Stale."* 

We have now, we think, proved from high authority, that 
notwithstanding the legal prohibition of the slave-trade, the 
people, the courts, and the executive authority in the planting 

*In 183o, the New York Journal of Commerce asseited that vessels had 
been recently fitted out in that port for the African slave-trade. 

The Boston Express, of 17th December, 1838, thus gives the substance of 
the statements made by Mr. Elliott Cresson, of the Pennsylvania Coloniza- 
tion Society, in a public address delivered a few days before in Boston : 

" Out of 177 slave ships which arrive at Cuba every year, five-sixths are 
owned and fitted out from ports in the United States, and the enormous 
profits accruing from their voyages remitted to this country. One house in 
New York received lately for its share alone the sum of §250,000. Baltimore 
is largely interested in this accursed traffic as well as New York — and even 
Boston, with all hei* religion and morality, does not disdain to increase her 
wealth by a participation in so damnable a business. A gentleman of the 
highest respectability lately informed Mr. Cresson that a sailor in this city 
told him that he had received several hundred dollars of hush money, to 
make him keep silent, and when he mentioned the names of his employers, 
the gentleman says he was actually afraid to repeat them, so high do they 
stand in society. A captain in the merchant service, from New York, was 
lately offered his own terms by two different houses, provided he would under- 
take a slave voyage." 

Of the truth of these statements we know nothing. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 281 

States, have afforded facilities for the importation of Africans. 
It now becomes important to inquire how far the Federal Gov- 
ernment has enforced the penalties imposed by the Act forbid- 
ding the trade. 

On the 7th of January, 1819, Joseph Nourse, Register of the 
Treasury, in an official document submitted to Congress, certified 
that there were no records in the Treasury Department of any 
forfeitures under the act of 1807, abolishing the slave-trade! 
So that notwithstanding the thirteen or fifteen thousand slaves, 
said by Southern members of Congress to be annually smuggled 
into the United States — notwithanding American citizens were 
declared by a Judge of the Supreme Court to be " steeped to 
their very mouths in this stream of iniquity," not one single for- 
feiture had in eleven years reached the Treasury of the United 
States ! Mr. Nourse, however, states that it was understood 
that there had been recently two forfeitures, one in South Caro- 
lina, and the other in Alabama. Respecting the first, we have 
no information ; of the latter, we are able to present the follow- 
ing extraordinary history. 

The Collector at Mobile, writing Nov. 15, 1818, to the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, remarks : 

" Should West Florida be given up to the Spanish authorities, both 
the American and Spanish vessels, it is to be apprehended, will be em- 
ployed in the importation of slaves, with an ultimate destination to this 
country ; and even in its present situation, the greatest facilities are 
afforded for obtaining slaves from Havana and elsewhere through 
West Florida. Three vessels, it is true, were taken in the attempt last 
summer, but this was owing rather to accident than any well-timed 
arrangement to prevent the trade." 

These three vessels brought in one hundred and seven slaves. 
By what mistake they were captured we are not informed, but 
another letter from the collector shows us how the " accident " 
was remedied. 

" The vessels and cargoes and slaves have been delivered on londs ; 
the former to the owners, and the slaves to three other persons. The 
Grand Jury found true bills against the owners of the vessels, masters 
and supercargo, all of whom have been discharged — why or wherefore, 
I cannot say, except that it could not be for want of proof against 
them." 



282 jay's works. 

From this letter it is most probable that the forfeiture of which 
Mr. Nourse had heard, if any in fact occurred, was the collusive 
forfeiture of the bonds.* 

We most freely acknowledge that so far as the statute book is 
to be received as evidence, there can be no question of the sin- 
cerity and zeal with which the Federal Government has labored 
to suppress the African slave-trade : but laws do not execute 
themselves, and we shall now appeal to the statute book, and to 
the minutes of Congress, to convict the government of gross 
hypocrisy and duplicity. 

It is difficult to understand why men who are engaged in 
breeding slaves for the market, or why men who are employed 
in buying and working slaves, should have any moral or religious 
scruples about the African trade ; and when we find political 
leaders professing to be ready to sacrifice the Union to secure 
the perpetuity of the American trade, we may surely be excused 
for doubting the sincerity of their denunciations against the for- 
eign traffic. 

In the year 1817, a new and sudden zeal was excited in Con- 
gress for the abolition of the trade, and this zeal, as we shall see, 
was the offspring of the efforts of Virginia to colonize the free 
blacks. The Legislature of that State had for years been anx- 
ious to get rid, not of the slaves, but of the free negroes. On 
the 1st of January, 1817, the Colonization Society, the result of 
Virginia policy, was organized at Washington, and immediately 
presented a memorial to Congress, praying for national coun- 
tenance. The committee to whom this memorial was referred, 
reported (11th Feb.) two resolutions: — 1st, calling on the 
President to enter into negotiations with foreign powers for the 
" entire and immediate abolition of the traffic in slaves ; " and 
2d, asking him to obtain the consent of Great Britain to our 
colonizing free people of color at Sierra Leone. Thus early 
was the cause of colonization connected with the agitation in 
Congress about the slave-trade ; a connection from which, as we 
shall presently see, the Society reaped a very large pecuniary 

* The documents we have quoted on this subject, are to be found in Re- 
ports of Committees. 1st Sess., 21st Cong., No. 348. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 283 

advantage. The resolutions were not acted on, and the next 
session, Mr. Mercer, regarded in Virginia as the father of the 
Society, succeeded in getting a vote of the House (Dec. 30th, 
1817,) instructing the committee on the memorial from the 
Society, to report on the expediency of rendering the laws 
against the slave-trade more effectual. Of this committee Mr. 
Mercer was himself the chairman ; and he recommended in his 
report, that the President should take measures for procuring 
suitable territory in Africa for colonizing free people of color, 
with their own consent; and that armed vessels should occasion- 
ally be sent to Africa for the purpose of interrupting the trade. 
The suggestions of the committee were not adopted, but the 
ensuing session, (March 3, 1819,) a new act against the slave- 
trade was passed, which gave "a local habitation " to the pres- 
ent colony of Monrovia, and was equivalent to a liberal and 
national grant to the Society. By this act, the President was 
authorized to restore to their country, such Africans as might be 
captured on board of slavers, or illegally introduced into the 
United States ; and he was to appoint agents on the coast to 
receive them. Mr. Monroe, then President of the United States, 
was a zealous colonizationist, and was afterwards placed at the' 
head of an auxiliary. Let us see what use he made of the 
powers entrusted to him by the act of 1819. Many years after, 
an inquiry was instituted in Congress as to the expenditures 
under this law, and the Secretary of the Navy (1830,) reported 
that 

AfZ W0 !T dre ? amI fift} "" two P ers «ns* of this description (recaptured 
Atncans,) have been removed to the settlement provided by the Colo- 
uzation bocietv on the coast of Africa; and that there had been 

^Ibtaiup!l W^w i ble t0 ascertain from what sources these Africans 
rubers fntft « \ ^ ™™ UOt al1 ° f thera tro P hies of the ^ of our 

« a documents «Th hUmamty ' a ? P T S £° m the followin S extracts fr ™ 
'4S Af,-; I ? : There are n °wm the charge of the Marshal of Geora-ii 

Xt . QS ' take . n 7 out of a South American privateer, the 'General RaS' 
fZrff W m f»l led < ™* bought the vessel into St. Marl's, SS » Teter 
I f^g^iSZSV*' 18 ^ L , "Adeci-ion o^f tW ^me Court 
irament from l^tn^nTf • re ?' P Iace t under ^ control of the Gov- 

ineempnt« m 12ot ,°. 13 Afrl cans, who were brought into Georgia, and ar- 

5S5?JS^Sf fclSS. 1 *- t0the ^""(Liberia.! Refor?of 



284 jay's works. 

expended therefor, the sum of two hundred and sixty-four thousand 
seven hundred and ten dollars. * * * The practice has been to 
furnish these persons with provisions for a period of time after being 
landed in Africa, varying from six months to one year ; to provide 
them with houses, arms and ammunition; to' pay for the erection of 
fortifications, for the building of vessels for their use, and, in short, to 
render all the aid required for the founding and support of a colonial 
establishment." 

A report from Amos Kendall, Fourth Auditor of the Treas- 
ury, discloses more particularly the manner in which the "Act 
in addition to the Acts prohibiting the slave-trade" was made 
subservient to the purposes of the Colonization Society. 

" In May, 1822, the Secretary of the Navy directed that ten liberated 
Africans should be delivered to Mr. J. Ashmun for transportation to 
Africa. The Secretary authorized him to take out, at the expense of 
the Government, 15,000 hard brick, 5,000 feet of assorted timber, 30 
barrels of ship bread, eight of tar, four of pitch, four of rosin, and two 
of turpentine." * * * "In the simple grant of power to an agent 
to receive recaptured negroes, it requires broad construction to find a 
grant of authority to colonize them, to build houses for them, to furnish 
them with farming utensils, to pay instructors to teach them, to purchase 
ships for their commerce, to build forts for their protection, to supply 
them with arms and munitions, and to employ the army and navy in 
their defence."* 

It cannot be denied that the friends of colonization had great 
encouragement to proceed in their warfare against the slave- 
trade. Accordingly, Mr. Mercer, as the chairman of the com- 
mittee to whom a memorial from the Society had been referred, 
reported (May 9th, 1820,) a bill incorporating the Society, and 
another making the slave-trade piracy ; and likewise two resolu- 
tions, the first, requesting the President to negotiate with foreign 
powers, " on the means of effecting an entire and immediate 
abolition of the slave-trade ; " and another requesting him to make 
such use of the public armed vessels as may aid the efforts of 
the Colonization Society. The first resolution was adopted, and 
the consideration of the other postponed. A few days after, 
(May 15th,) the Act making the African slave-trade piratical, 
was passed. Bat laws do not execute themselves : and if any 

* Senate Documents, 2Sess., 2 Cong. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 285 

slave-trade* has suffered death in the United States as a pirate, 
we confess our ignorance of the fact.* 

It certainly required some little assurance in the House of 
Representatives thus to order a negotiation with foreign powers 
for the suppression of the trade, when the Federal Government 
had itself been so remiss in its efforts, that both Houses of the 
British Parliament had, the year before, (July, 1819,) addressed 
the Prince Regent, praying him to renew " his beneficent en- 
deavors, more especially with the Governments of France and 
the United States of America, for the effectual attainment of an 
object we all profess to have in view : " and a negotiation had 
already been actually commenced with our Government, propos- 
ing to concede " to each other's ships of war, a qualified right 
of search, with a power of detaining the vessels of either State, 
with slaves actually on board ; " f and a positive refusal to this 
proposal had already been returned. There is no evidence that 
our Government ever took a single measure in consequence of 
this resolution ; and under all the circumstances of the case, it 
is not uncharitable to believe that it was intended to save ap- 
pearances. 

"We must now beg the reader's attention to a new act in this 
farce of suppressing the slave-trade. 

In 1814, our government concluded a war with Great Britain, 
and in the treaty of peace, gave its assent to the following 
article : 

" Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of 
humanity and justice ; and whereas His Majesty and the United 

* In 1820, a slave vessel, the Science, fitted out at New York, and com- 
manded by Adolphe Lacoste, of Charleston, South Carolina, was captured on 
the coast of Africa, by the United States ship Cyane, and Lacoste sent home 
for trial. The trial took place in the Circuit Court of the United States, 
before Judge Story. The evidence was full and unequivocal ; Lacoste was 
convicted, and sent&nced to five years' imprisonment, and to the payment of 
a fine of $3,000. Had the crime been committed a few months later, the 
penalty would have been death, under the new law, declaring the trade 
piracy. Lacoste received a full pardon from the President ; and the reader 
may thence judge, whether.'had he been convicted as a pirate, his life would 
have been much in danger. The reasons assigned for the pardon were youth, 
previous good character, and an aged mother. Niles's Reqister, April 20! 
1822. 

fLetter from Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Rush, June 20, 1818. 

25 



286 jay's works. 

States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire ab- 
olition, it is hereby agreed, that both the contracting parties shall use 
their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object." 

On the 29th of January, 1823, Mr. Stratford Canning, the 
British Minister at Washington, addressed a letter to the Secre- 
tary of State, reminding him of this pledge, and calling on the 
American Government either to assent to the plan proposed by 
Great Britain, or to suggest some other efficient one in its place. 
After the reception of this letter, and before the return of an 
answer, the following resolution was passed (28th Feb.) by the 
House of Representatives, viz. : 

•■ Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested 
to enter upon and prosecute, from time to time, such negotiations with 
the several maritime powers of Europe and America, as he may deem 
expedient, for the effectual abolition of the African slave-trade, and its 
ultimate denunciation as piracy, under the laws of nations, by the con- 
tent of the civilized icorld." 

The British Minister was then informed, in answer to his 
letter, that the plan proposed by the United States was a mutual 
stipulation to annex the penalty of piracy to the offence of par- 
ticipating in the trade, by the citizens and subjects of the two 
parties. Mr. Canning replied, that 

•• Great Britain desires no other, than that any of her subjects who 
so far defy the laws and dishonor the character of their country as to 
engage in a trade of blood, proscribed not more by the act of the 
Legislature than by the national feeling, should be detected and brought 
to justice even bv foreign hands, and from under the protection of her 
flag." 

He, nevertheless, urged a limited concession of the right of 
search, as the only practical cure of the evil ; and he communi- 
cated the fact, that so late as January, 1822, it was stated offi- 
cially by the Governor of Sierra Leone, " that the fine rivers of 
Nunez and Pongas were entirely under the control of renegade 
European and American slave-traders." He then proposed that 
a mutual right of search should be conceded, to be confined to 
a fixed number of cruisers on each side ; to be restricted to 
certain parts of the ocean ; and that to prevent abuses, these 
cruisers should act under regulations prepared by mutual con- 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERXilEXT. 

sent ; and moreover, that this concession should be made only 
for a short time, that if found inconvenient in practice, it might 
be discontinued.* 

But the Republic stood on its dignity, and would not conde- 
scend to yield a concession which Great Britain. France, Spain. 
Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden. Tuscany, the 
Hans Towns. Naples, and Sardinia, have thought it no degrada- 
tion to make in the cause of humanity. 

But still the American Government was rery anxious tha: 
every man of every nation, who engaged in the traffic of slaves 
on the coast of Africa, (not in the District of Columbia,) should 
be hung by the neck till he was dead ; and forthwith, in obedi- 
ence to the resolution of February 28, despatches were forward- 
ed to the Cabinets of France. Spain, Portugal. Russi:.. 
Netherlands. Buenos Ayres. and Colombia, announcing the de- 
sire of the United States to declare the trade piracy, by the 
common consent of nations. 

It is generally understood that a pirate is an enemy to the 
human race, and may be put to death by any government in 
whose hands he may chance to fall. If this was not the purport 
of the proposition to the House of Representatives, that the 
trade should be denounced "as piracy under the laws of nations, 
by the consent of the civilized world," we may well ask, what did 
it mean ? 

On the 24th of June, 1823. instructions were forwarded to 
our Minister in England, authorizing him to conclude a treaty 
with Great Britain on the subjcet of the slave-trade, on certain 
conditions. u The draft of a convention." says the Secretary of 
State. - is herewith enclosed, which, IF the British Government 
should agree to treat upon this subject, on the basis of a 
live prohibition of the slave-trade by both parties under the 
penalties of piracy, you are authorized to propose and con- 
clude." 

Now it should be remembered that at this time the trade was 
not piratical by the British laws, and the English Ministry could 
not make it so by treaty. TTe therefore proposed a condition 

* Letter from Mr. Stratford Canning, to the Secretary of State, April IS, 
1S23. 



288 jay's works. 

with which possibly they might not have it in their power to 
comply. The ministry, however, when made acquainted with 
the condition, felt confident of the acquiescence of Parliament. 
" The British Plenipotentiaries," says Mr. Rush, in his letter to 
the Secretaiy of State, " gave their unhesitating consent to the 
principle of denouncing the traffic as piracy, provided we could 
arrive at a common mind on all the other parts of the plan 
proposed." 

The treaty, nearly verbatim with the draft sent from Wash- 
ington, was signed at London on the 13th of March, 1824 ; and 
a few days afterwards, according to a previous understanding, 
and in fulfilment of the condition exacted by us, Parliament 
passed an act, declaring that all British subjects found guilty of 
slave-trading " shall suffer death without benefit of clergy, and 
loss of lands, goods and chattels, as pirates, felons and robbers 
upon the seas, ought to suffer." 

This treaty provided, in substance, that the cruisers of either 
party on the coast of Africa, America, and the West Indies, 
may seize slaves under the flag of the other, and send them 
home to the country to which they belonged, where they should 
be proceeded against as ph-ates. So that in fact, the whole con- 
cession made by us to Great Britain amounted to no more than 
permitting her to arrest our pirates, and to deliver them to our 
courts for trial ; and in return, she granted us precisely the same 
right with respect to her pirates. 

The treaty was submitted of course to the Senate for ratifica- 
tion, which, under the circumstances of the case, one would 
think, must have followed as a matter of course. The Senate, 
however, thought otherwise. The treaty was laid before them 
on the 30th of April ; but as they delayed to act upon it, the 
British Minister at Washington became uneasy, and on the 16th 
of May addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, complain- 
ing of the postponement of the ratification, especially as the 
project of the convention had originated with the United States, 
and as Great Britain " had not hesitated an instant to comply 
with the preliminary act desired by the President," the legisla- 
tive prohibition of the slave-trade under the penalties of piracy' 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 289 

The President naturally feeling his own good faith comprom- 
ised by the hesitation of the Senate, now sent them a confiden- 
tial message, urging the ratification of the treaty. He remarked 
that the rejection of the treaty would subject the Executive, 
Congress, and the nation, 

" To the charge of insincerity respecting the great result of the final 
suppression of the slave-trade. To invite all nations, with the statute 
of piracy in our hands, to adopt its principles as the law of nations, and 
yet to deny to all the common rights of search for the pirate, whom it 
would be impossible to detect without entering and searching the ves- 
sels, would expose us not simply to the charge of inconsistency." 

The Senate, after long debates, finally ratified the treaty, in a 
mutilated form. They struck out the word " America," in the 
clause authorizing the seizure of slavers on " the coasts of Af- 
rica, America, and the West Indies." They also expunged the 
articles applying the provision of the treaty to vessels chartered, 
as well as owned by the citizens or subjects of either party ; and 
to the citizens or subjects of either party carrying on the trade 
under foreign flags ; and they added an article authorizing 
either party to terminate the treaty at any time, on giving six 
months' notice. 

It will have been observed, from the documents we have 
quoted, that the slaves imported into the United States, have 
been chiefly introduced through the Spanish possessions on our 
southern frontiers, slavers direct from Africa rarely having the 
hardihood to enter our ports, and discharge the cargoes ; while 
small vessels from the West Indies have occasionally found 
their way into the southern waters. Of course the treaty as 
altered by the Senate, would afford but little interruption to this 
mode of stocking the plantations of Louisiana and the neigh- 
boring States. 

As chartered vessels were excepted, our traders would only 
have to hire slavers instead of owning them, to be exempted 
from the hazard of being arrested and sent home for trial, by 
British officers ; or even if on board their own vessels, by run- 
ning up a foreign flag, they would escape the penalties of piracy. 

25* 



290 jay's works. 

The British Cabinet refused to agree to the treaty thus 
despoiled of all its efficiency ; but with wonderful simplicity, they 
proposed to restrict the right of search on the coast of America, 
to the coast of the southern States. This proposition was of 
course promptly rejected by our Minister in England. 

The British Government, vainly cherishing the hope that the 
United States might still consent to some combined effort to 
destroy a trade they professed to abhor, offered, through their 
Minister at Washington, to consent to a treaty, word for word 
the same as the one the Senate had ratified, with the single ex- 
ception of restoring the word "America." To this, Mr. Clay, 
then Secretary of State, replied, that 

"From the views entertained by the Senate, it would seem unneces- 
sary and inexpedient any longer to continue the negotiation respecting 
the slave convention, with any hope that it can assume a form satisfac- 
tory to both parties. That a similar convention had been formed with 
Colombia, on the 10th of December, 1824, excepting that the coast of 
America was excepted from its operation ; and yet, notwithstanding 
this conciliatory feature, the Senate had by a large majority refused to 
ratify it." * 

Negotiations have since been renewed on this subject ; and 
France has united with Great Britain, in urging the Cabinet at 
Washington to cooperate with them in putting an end to the 
African slave-trade. The correspondence has not been made 
public, but we learn from the Edinburgh Review, for July, 1836, 
that the final answer of the American Government is, that 

"Under no condition, in no form, and with no restriction, will the 
United Slates enter into any convention, or treaty, or combined efforts of 
any sort or kind with other nations, for the suppression of this trade." 

To our readers we leave the task of making their own com- 
ments on this history of duplicity and hypocrisy; and proceed 
to other details. 

On the 2d of November, 1825, the Colombian Minister at 
Washington, in the name of his government, invited the United 
States to send delegates to a Congress of the South American 

* The documents quoted on this subject, maybe found in the State Papers, 
1st Sess., 19 Cong., vol. 1 ; and in Reports" of Committees, 1st Sess., 21 
Cong., vol. 3, No. 3t8. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 291 

Republics, to be held at Panama. In enumerating the topics 
to be discussed in the proposed Congress, he remarked : 

" The consideration of means to be adopted for the entire abolition 
of the African slave-trade, is a subject sacred to humanity, and interest- 
ing to the policy of the American States. To effect it, their energetic, 
general and uniform cooperation is desirable. At the proposition of 
the United States, Colombia made a convention with them on this sub- 
ject, which has not been ratified by the Government of the United Slates. 
Would that America, which does not think politic what is unjust, might 
contribute in union, and with common consent, to the good of Africa ! " 

This document was submitted to the Senate, and on the lGth 
of January, 1826, a committee of the Senate made a report in 
relation to it, in which they observe : 

" The United States have not certainly the right, and ought never to 
feel the inclination to dictate to others who may differ with them on 
this subject," (the slave-trade,) " nor do the committee see the expedi- 
ency of insulting other States by ascending the moral chair, and pro- 
claiming from thence mere abstract principles, of the rectitude of which 
each nation enjoys the perfect right of deciding for itself." 

The remarks made on this occasion by Mr. White, a Senator 
from Tennessee, are worthy of observation. 

" In these new States (the South American Republics,) some of them 
have put it down in their fundamental law, ' that whoever owns a slave 
shall cease to be a citizen.' Is it then fit that the United States should 
disturb the quiet of the southern and western Stales upon any subject 
connected with slavery ? I think not. Can it be the desire of any 
prominent politician iii the United States, to divide us into parties upon 
the subject of slavery ? I hope not. Let us then cease to talk about 
slavery in this House ; let us cease to negotiate upon any subject con- 
nected with it." 

We have seen most abundantly that slave-holders have no 
objection to talk about slavery in Congress, or to negotiate about 
it with foreign nations, when the object is to guard their beloved 
institution from danger. It is only on the abominations of the 
system, and the means of removing it, that every tongue must 
be mute, and the Federal Government passive. As that gov- 
ernment refuses to enter into any combined efforts for the sup- 
pression of this trade, and makes none of its own, we may 
reasonably suppose that our citizens are now largely engaged in 
it. Let us see if this supposition accords with facts. 



292 jay's works. 



PRESENT PARTICIPATION OF CITIZENS OP THE UNITED STATES 
IN THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 

In pursuance of a treaty with Spain, certain commissioners 
are appointed by Great Britain to reside at Havana. On the 
25th of Octobei', 1836, these commissioners wrote to their 
government : 

" To our astonishment and regret, we have ascertained that the Ana- 
conda and Viper, the one on the 6th, and the other on the 10th, current, 
cleared out and sailed from here for the Cape de Verd Islands under 
the American flag. These two vessels arrived at the Havana, fitted 
in every particular for the slave-trade, and took on board a cargo 
which would alone have condemned as a slaver, any vessel belonging 
to the nations that are parties to the equipment article." 

They remark that the declaration of the American President 
not to make the United States a party to any convention on the 
subject of the slave-trade, 

" Has been the means of inducing American citizens to build and fit 
in their ports vessels only calculated for piracy, or the slave-trade — to 
enter this port, and in concert with the Havana slave-traders, to take 
on board a prohibited cargo, manacles, &c, and proceed openly to that 
notorious depot for this iniquitous traffic, the Cape de Verd Island, 
under shelter of the national flag ; and we may add, that while these 
American slavers were making their final arrangements for de- 
parture, the Havana was visited more than once by American ships of 
war" 

This statement and others we are are about to present to the 
reader, explain the practical residts, and probably the secret mo- 
tives of the rejection by the Senate of the slave-trade convention 
with Great Britain. The commissioners proceed : 

" Two American vessels, the Fanny Butler and Rosanna, have pro- 
ceeded to the Cape de Verd Islands and the coast of Africa, under the 
American flag, upon the same inhuman speculation. * * * We 
cannot conceal our deep regret at the new and dreadful impetus 
imparted to the slave-trade of this island, by the manner in which some 
American citizens impunibly violate every law, by embarking openly 
for the coast of Africa under their national flag, with the avowed 
purpose of bringing slaves to this market. We are likewise assured 
that it is intended, by means of this fag, to supply slaves for the vast 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 293 

j^rovince of Texas ; agents from there being in constant communica- 
tion with the Havana slave merchants."* 

We are fearful of trespassing upon the patience of the reader 
■while Ave enter into the details necessary to demonstrate the 
increased activity given to the trade by the action of the Federal 
Government ; but these details are essential to an exhibition of 
the horrible duplicity of the government, and the foul disgrace in 
which the flag of the Republic is steeped, by being made the 
a?gis of the very wretches whom our legislators pretend to regard 
as pirates. 

We learn from Buxton's late work on the present state of the 
trade, that 

" The Venus, said to be sharpest clipper built vessel ever constructed 
at Baltimore, left that place in July, 1838, and arrived at Havana on 
the 4 th of the August following. She sailed from thence in September 
for Mozambique ; there she took a cargo of slaves, being all this time 
under the flag of the United States. On the 7th of January, 1839, she 
landed 8'GO negroes near Havana under Portuguese colors" p. 23. 

In certain documents, lately published by the British Parlia- 
ment we have the names of eleven vessels, which sailed under 
the flag of the United States, from Havana to Africa for slaves 
in 1837, and of nineteen more, which sailed in 1838. Major 
McGregor, special magistrate for the Bahamas, in a letter to 
Mr. Buxton mentions the wreck of the schooner Invincible, a 
slaver, on the 28th of October, 1837, and adds : 

" The captain's name was Potts, a native of Florida. The vessel 
was fitted out at Baltimore in America, and three-fourths of the crew 
I were natives of the United States, although they pretended to be only 
i passengers." 

The major also mentions another slaver, with a cargo of 160 
i Africans, being wrecked on one of the islands, and says : 

[ "This pretended Portuguese vessel was fitted out at Baltimore, 
United States, having been formerly a pilot boat, called the Wash- 

, ington. The supercargo was an American citizen of Baltimore,' 
pp. 23, 186. 

* Buxton's African Slave Trade, p. 21, 



294 jay's works. 

Mr. Mitclicl Thompson, an officer on board the British ship- 
of-war Sappho, thus wrote at Jamaica in the spring of 1839, to 
a gentleman of Philadelphia : 

" Almost half the vessels employed in this trade and furnished to 
either the Spaniards or the Portuguese are from America, and seem to 
have been built at Baltimore, from which place they sail chartered for 
some port in Cuba with lumber; which lumber is converted into 
slave-decks on their arrival at the destined port. To this is now added 
copper, casks, and food, with the necessery slave irons ; and now also is 
added the requisite number of Spaniards as part complement of the 
ship's company ; with American papers and flag, they escape our cruis- 
ers, as the concession of the right of mutual search has not been made by 
America." 

A recent letter from an officer of the British ship-of-war 
Pelican, published in the London papers, mentions that this ship 
had lately captured an American schooner, the Octavia of 
Baltimore, with 220 slaves. 

The editor of the Baltimore Chronicle states that Captain 
McDonald, of the brig North, just arrived from Africa, reported 
that the Captain of the British brig of war Partaga, told him 
in [conversation, that they had fallen in with several vessels 
which had the appearance of being slavers, but having American 
colors and papers furnished by the Consul at Havana, he had to 
let them pass ; but afterwards he fell in with them with slaves 
on board, that being proof positive of their true character. 

Mr. Buchanan, Governor of Liberia, in a letter written from 
the colony, and published in the New York Journal of Com- 
merce of July 6, 1839, says : 

" Never was the American flag so extensively used by those 
pirates upon liberty and humanity as at present. Probably three- 
fourths of the vessels boarded by the English cruisers and found to 
be slavers are protected by American papers and the American 
flag.* 



* The American and Russian flag bear very different relations towards the 
African slave-trade. On the 2d of April, 1836, the Russian Consul in New 
York, published in the papers, by special instructions from his Government, 
a " Consular Notice," in which he declared that " no slave-trader, in any 
circumstances whatever, when seized under the Russian flag, or otherwise, 
can invoke the aid of the Imperial Government to screen him from just and 
well-merited punishment." 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 295 

In the spring of 1839, three American slavers were captured 
by British cruisers, and carried into Sierra Leone. They were 
the Clara, Wyoming, and Eagle, and all under American cap- 
tains, and furnished with American papers. They had no 
slaves on board, but were fitted up for the trade, having slave- 
decks, manacles, &c, &c. 

At Sierra Leone it was decided that the English courts had 
no jurisdiction over these vessels, and of course that their cap- 
ture was unauthorized. But inasmuch as the character of the 
vessels was obvious, and they were engaged in a trade declared 
piratical by the American Congress, it was deemed both prudent 
and friendly to send them home for trial, and they arrived at 
New York in June last, under the charge of a British ship- 
of-war. A more unwelcome present could not have been 
offered to the Federal Government than these three slavers. 
An acceptance of them would have involved various inconve- 
nient consequences. In the first place the President would have 
been compelled, by a due regard to the feelings of his southern 
constituents, to inquire by what authority British officers had 
presumed to arrest these ships, interrupt their voyages, and 
transport them across the Atlantic, contrary to the known and 
recorded will of the Senate of the United States. This would 
have led to an embarrassing negotiation, and likewise to a very 
undesirable discussion in the newspapers, and would probably 
have strengthened the hostility at the North to slavery and the 
slave-trade. If, on the other hand, the government acqui- 
esced in this treatment of American slavers, then our courts 
would be occupied in trials in which it would be impossible to 
avoid touching upon " the delicate subject," and men might be 
sentenced to the gallows, merely for buying and selling their 
fellow-men. It would moreover be permitting Great Britain to 
do without a treaty what she had entreated us to permit her to 
do by treaty, and which Ave had refused. An expedient was 
was adopted which avoided these embarrassments. The Gov- 
ernment, it is said, thought proper not to recognize these ships as 
American property, and therefore declined receiving them. By 
this course all public judicial investigations and disclosures were 



296 jay's works. 

prevented ; and the whole matter was hushed up as quickly as 
possible. The avowed reasons for this decision have not been 
made public. 

We will now recall to the recollection of our readers the re- 
mark of the British commissioners, that " while the American 
slavers were making their final arrangements for departure, the 
Havana was visited more than once by American ships-of-war." 
In other words our naval officers showed no disposition to arrest 
such of their countrymen as were engaged in the slave-trade, 
and to send them home for trial and punishment. It no doubt 
seems very strange to foreigners that the American navy should 
be so exceedingly remiss in seconding the zeal of the Federal 
Government in suppressing the slave-trade — but it is a trite 
remark that foreigners cannot understand our institutions — the 
conduct of the navy is perfectly natural, and precisely such as 
might rationally be expected. We have no knowledge of any 
slaver having been molested by an American armed vessel for 
the last fifteen years. It is not necessary for our cruisers to go to 
Africa to capture slavers. The trade passes our very doors, 
and slavers are to be found by those who look for them off the port 
of Baltimore, and along the shores of Cuba and Texas. 

The New York Journal of Commerce, speaking of the seizure 
of slavers by British cruisers, remarks : 

" The capture of a slaver by an American cruiser is a thing unheard 
of for many years, and wholly unexpected. Scores of slave-vessels 
are caught every year by British cruisers, and we will not do our 
national vessels the injustice to suppose that they never could catch 
any, if they were so disposed." 

But why should they be " so disposed ? " About one-half of 
our naval officers are the sons of slave-holders, and can we ex- 
pect that they will voluntarily assist in bringing men to the 
gibbet for trading in African savages, while their own fathers 
are engaged in buying and selling their fellow-countrymen ? 

Again, pecuniary reward, professional promotion, and public 
applause, are the chief incentives to military enterprise. Our 
officers have been recently taught that efforts to capture or de- 
stroy fugitive slaves will be liberally rewarded from the national 
treasury ; but when have they been paid for capturing slavers ? 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 297 

It is natural that our young and ardent officers should pant 
for promotion, and that they should turn their anxious and ex- 
pectant gaze upon the dispenser of professional favors, the Sec- 
retary of the Navy. Should they read this gentleman's 
work, " Slavery in the United States," they will have little hope 
of getting into his good graces by any exhibition of zeal against 
the African slave-trade. They will learn from the head of the 
naval department, that the introduction of negro slaves into our 
country was in " accordance with the sanction of holy writ, as 
conveyed in the twenty -fifth chapter of Leviticus," p. 42 ; and 
they will be led to infer the benevolent tendency of the traffic 
from the following authoritative declaration of the innocency 
and happiness of slavery itself. 

" That slavery is a great moral evil, or that its existence or continu- 
ance detracts one tittle, one atom from the happiness of # the slaves, our 
own experience and observation directly contradict," p. 12G. 

We presume Mr. Paulding alludes to the experience and 
observation accpiired in his intercourse with coflle-drivers during 
his excursion in 181 G. Our officers are moreover instructed by 
the Secretary, that although 

" The white and black races of men are probably the nearest to each 
other of all these varieties (animals with similar instincts), they are not 
homogeneous any more than the orang-outang, the ape, the baboon, 
and the monkey, who possibly may ere long find a new sect of phi- 
lanthropists to sustain their claim to amalgamation," p. 271. 

But should our officers incmire how far public opinion would 
justify and commend them for breaking up the voyages of 
American merchants, seizing their vessels, and exposing their 
commanders and crews to an infamous death, what answer would 
be returned by facts ? 

The editor of the New York Journal of Commerce declared, 
in his paper of 20th June, 1835 : 

I " We pledge ourselves to prove, to the satisfaction of the Presiden t 
, or Secretary of War, that slave-ships have, within the past year, been 
' actually fitted out at the port of New York." 

Has the Secretary of War, the President, or any grand jury 

called on the editor to redeem his pledge ? 
26 



298 jay's works. 

The New Orleans Courier of May 21, 1839, after comment- 
ing on the present extent of the African slave-trade, remarks : 

" If such have been the results produced by the injudicious efforts 
of the English philanthropists, we may well doubt the policy of the law 
of Congress which bas probibited the importation of slaves from Afri- 
ca, — a policy, that by all we can learn, has no other effect than to 
cause the planter of Louisiana to pay to the Virginia slave-holder one 
thousand dollars for a negro which now in Cuba, and by-and-by in 
Texas, may be bought for half the money. It is known to those 
acquainted with the character of the African, that he is more patient 
and less unruly than the Virginia or Maryland negro — his very ignor- 
ance of many things makes him less dangerous in a community bke 
ours, and his constitution is better suited to our climate. In transport- 
ing him from his own country, his position too in civilization is bettered, 
not worsted. 

" The more we examine and reflect on the policy the Texaxs are 
likely to pursue in this matter, openly or covertly, the more we are 
convinced that Texas should be annexed to the Union, or else Congress 
should repeal the law prohibiting the importation of slaves from Africa. 
Otherwise the culture of sugar and cotton in Louisiana will suffer 
greatly by the cheaper labor which the planters of Cuba and Texas 
can and will employ." 

Here Ave find a public and cold-blooded proposal to reopen 
the African slave-trade. And was this proposal received with 
horror by the public ? Alas ! even the northern press has 
scarcely condemned it. Multitudes of our papers have not 
noticed it — others have republished the article without a single 
remark, and the " New York Express," a leading "Whig and 
commercial journal, introduces the diabolical proposal to its 
readers as " The following interesting comments of the New Or- 
leans Courier." Openly to approve the proposal, might offend 
some fanatical subscribers — openly to condemn it, might injure 
the Whig party at the South. 

The New York " Courier and Enquirer," another Whig and 
commercial journal, contained (July 27, 1839,) the following 
editorial : 

" Rio Janeiro papers have reached us to the 31st of May last. The 
chief information from Brazil, which they contain of interest here, is 
that of the capture of two vessels under Portuguese colors by a British 
ship-of-war, shortly after leaving Rio, on suspicion that they were fitted 
out for the slave-trade. We are not astonished that these captures 
should have excited much indignation to Rio. Whatever may be 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 299 

thought of the trade itself, the people generally are engaged in it and 
interested in its success, and it is asking a little too much of them to 
remain quiet while foreign vessels enter their harbor, take in provi- 
sions, remain there as long as it suits their purpose, and then sally forth, 
break up their enterprises, and bring back their property to be con- 
demned under their very noses." 

This appeared shortly after the three American slavers, cap- 
tured by British cruisers, had been sent into New York — hence 
the indignation of the editor — hence the news from Rio was 
" of interest " in New York. It is excessively impudent in the 
English to take it for granted that the laws of the United States 
and Brazil against the trade, were enacted in good faith. It 
matters not that Brazil had declared the trade piracy, — and 
that the cruisers only delivered to the Brazilian government 
their own pirates. The Brazilian people, like our own, are en- 
<mo-ed in the trade and interested in its success, and it is a great 
outrage for foreigners to interfere ! 

Let the officers of our navy learn from this, not to break up 
the enterprise of our merchants, and to bring back their property 
to be condemned under their very noses. 



RENEWED ACTION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN BEHALF 
OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 

We have already seen the character and extent of the aid 
afforded by the Government to the Colonization Society under 
pretence of providing for recaptured Africans. Some of the 
southern members of Congress, not fully understanding the true 
tendency of this Society, and believing its influence hostile to 
slavery, objected to this aid on constitutional grounds, and it was 
discontinued, after an expenditure of $264,000. That the So- 
ciety is now more justly estimated appears from the following 
recent testimonies in its behalf. 

On the 10th of January, 1839, Mr. Henry Wise, a member 
of Congress from Virginia, delivered an address before the 
Colonization Society of that State. He remarked that a few 
years since he became suspicious of the Society, in consecpxence 



300 jay's works. 

of the sentiments avowed by some of its members. That he 
had before that time been " the zealous and active friend and 
advocate of the great original principles of the design, to secure 
and fortify the institution of slavery itself by colonizing the free 
people of color ; " but he confesses that " the line of demarca- 
tion is now too strongly drawn between abolition and colonization 
ever to be crossed. Their principles are diametrically opposed 
to each other, and their warfare will tend to press each to occu- 
py its appropriate ground and position. The Colonization So- 
ciety must now maintain that great original principle upon which 
it was founded, "friendship to the slave-holder." 

In the month previous to the delivery of this speech, the 
Baldwin (Alabama) Colonization Society issued an address 
recommending colonization*, 

" Because it proposes to remove from among us a degraded, useless, 
and vicious race. 

" Because we consider the measure of all others best calculated to 
preserve good order and proper discipline among our slaves. 

" Therefore we deem the plan of removing them (free blacks) from 
the United States, the most effectual method of counteracting the 
abolitionists. It is known that they are the most violent opponents 
which the scheme of colonization has to encounter. Their penetration 
has discovered its tendency, and they denounce it as a scheme origin- 
ating among slave-holders for the perpetuation of slavery 

" Nor should it be forgotten, that it (Africa,) is the natural home of 
the negro race, and at a safe distance, whence they can never return to 
the injury of our slave popidation." African Repository for March, 
1839. 

Thus we see that the Society is now regarded as a friend and 
ally by both descriptions of slave-holders, the breeders and the 
planters. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Van Buren is an 
inattentive observer of the signs of the times. Colonization is 
just now very popular in Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Missis- 
sippi, and Louisiana. Mr. Clay's speech was delivered on the 
7th of February, and was certainly calculated to propitiate the 
slave-holders. He is, moreover, President of the Colonization 
Society, and it would be unwise to suffer him to engross the 
influence of " the most effectual method of counteracting the 
abolitionists." On the 19th of February, twelve days after Mr. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 301 

Clay's speech, the intentions of the government were announced 
in the following letter, which was widely circulated. 

" I ought here to inform you that the government of the United 
States has came to our aid hy furnishing cannon, small arms, both 
muskets, pistols, swords and rockets, and an abundant supply of am- 
munition, and two fine boats — also made our governor their agent for 
recaptured Africans (!) at a salary of $1500 a year, which is so much 
money bestowed on the Society ; and I confidently believe that a ship- 
of-war will be sent to the coast of Africa to suppress the slave-trade. 
There never was a time when African colonization had so strong claims 
on the benevolent public. 

Respectfully yours, 

Samuel Wilkinson, 
General Agent of the American Col. Soc" 

Thus, while Mr. Clay can only make speeches in behalf of 
the great antidote to abolition, his rival is lavishing upon it the 
public funds under the palpably false pretence of providing for 
recaptured Africans. When it is recollected that our navy 
recaptures no Africans, and that if we had any such Africans to 
restore to their own country, they might be sent to Liberia in 
the regular vessels at a trifling expense, it must, we think, be 
admitted that these appropriations to the Colonization Society, 
and this addition of $1500 per annum to the salary of their 
governor, is a fraudulent application of the public money, to 
promote the interests of slave-holders and the perpetuity of 
slavery. 

There are still many at the North who view the African 
slave-trade with abhorrence, and great pains have been taken 
to impress them with the belief that the colonization of Ameri- 
can negroes upon the African coast, is the " only efficient 
means of suppressing it." Here Mr. Van Buren's bounty to 
the Society is regarded as his contribution to the destruction of 
this commerce. The New York Journal of Commerce affirms 
ithat the late grants " will have an important influence in check- 
ling the slave-trade." 

I African negroes, we well know, sell every slave exported 
jfrom that continent ; we have the testimony of Mr. Madison, 
'that the white citizens of the Southern States would not have 
entered the American Union, had they not been indulged 
26* 



302 jay's works. 

in the African trade for twenty years ; and, even now, many of 
them are anxious for its restoration. But American negroes 
transported to Africa, will put to the blush the civilization, and 
Christianity, and chivalry of the South, and will manfully resist 
the temptation to which multitudes of our own citizens readily 
yield, of making merchandise of their fellow-men ! Do we seek 
to solve this enigma by a reference to the moral character of our 
free negroes ? Mr. Clay, the President of the Society, assures 
us that they are, " of all descriptions of our population, the 
most corrupt, depraved and abandoned ; " and Mr. Mercer, a 
vice president, pronounces them " a horde of miserable people 
— the objects of universal suspicion — subsisting by plunder." 
So far from the Liberian colony being a restraint on the slave- 
trade, it will become a rendezvous for slavers, and the colonists 
themselves will be either their victims or factors. We cannot 
spare room for all the reasons on which this opinion is founded. 
Let the following facts suffice. 

" The Liberia Herald mentions the capture of three Spanish slavers, 
by the British brig Curlew, while lying within the harbor of Monrovia." 
African Repository for March, 1836. 

" Boats have been sent from the Spanish slavers into the St. Paul's, 
and slaves have been bought in that river." Letter from the Governor of 
Liberia, 8th of January, 1836. Afr. Rep. 

The St. Paul's penetrates the heart of the colony, and the 
settlements of Caldwell and Millsburg are on its banks ! 

" Within a year, four slave factories have been established 
almost within sight of the colony." Captain Nicholson's report to Sec- 
retary of the Navy, 8th January, 1837. 

" To-morrow, the schooner sails for New Sestos, to take on board a 
cargo of slaves which I have ready there. I have been obliged to have 
one hundred sets of shackles made at Cape Mesurada" — (Monrovia.)* 
Intercepted letter of 28th September, 1 838, //-o;?i the captain of a slaver 
to his oivners at Ilavana, and published by British Parliament. 

" On the 15th of February, 1838, arrived at this port, a vessel under 
American colors named the Monrovia, last from Liberia, with a bill 
of sale and list of crew from the collector of that colony. This vessel 
had neither register nor a sea letter. I have ascertained, without 

* This letter is dated at Little Bassa, in Liberia, and between Monrovia 
and Cape Palmas. 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 303 

doubt, that she is a vessel belonging to Don Pedro Blanco,* ot the 
Gallinas, has put in here, directed to his agent, for a fit-out for the 
coast, and that a cargo of slaves is ready for her. There is a black 
man on board, for a flag captain — speaks English well — learned that 
he is a complete pilot on board to all the inlets between Sierra Leone 
and Gambia. He cannot read or write. 

" Don Pedro Blanco's agent in Liberia is J. N. Lewis, commission 
merchant." Letter of February 2Sth, 1838, from British Consul for the 
Cape de Verd Islands, to Lord Palmerslon. British Documents. 



INTERCOURSE OF THE GOVERNMENT WITH THE INDIANS MADE 
SUBSERVIENT TO SLAVERY. 

It has been long customary, in every treaty of peace, after an 
Indian war, to insert an article for the surrender of prisoners, 
" white or black," or of " all citizens of the United States, white 
inhabitant or negroes." It is doubtful whether the southern 
Indians, in their wars, made any slaves prisoners, strictly speak- 
ing. Servitude with the Indians is so much lighter than with 
the planters, that the slaves are ever ready to exchange Chris- 
tian for heathen masters ; and many of them have embraced the 
opportunity, afforded by Indian wars, of escaping from the 
" quarters," and seeking refuge in the wigwam. 

In 1802, Congress passed a law whereby the government 
assumed the obligation of indemnifying the citizens for all rob- 
beries and trespasses they might suffer from the Indians ; and 
the amount of the indemnification was to be deducted from the 
annuities or other moneys which might be due from the govern- 
ment to the Indians. The treaty stipulation to restore negroes 
was nugatory in practice, as the Indians felt probably no dispo- 
sition to execute it. Still the stipulation imposed an obligation, 
and laid the foundation of a claim on the part of the govern- 
ment. These introductory remarks will aid the reader in com- 
prehending the extraordinary and iniquitous transaction Ave 
shall now proceed to unfold. 

On the 8th of January, 1821, a treaty was concluded at 
Indian Springs, between the United States and the Creek 
nation. The federal negotiators were D. M. Forney, of North 

* A notorious slave merchant, connected with a house in Havana. 



304 jay's works. 

Carolina, and David Meriwether, of Georgia. By this treaty 
the United States purchased certain lands belonging to the 
Creeks. The consideration for these lands was two-fold ; first a 
certain sum of money, and secondly, the following stipulation 
in the words of the treaty : 

" And as a further consideration for said cession, the United States 
do hereby agree to pay the State of Georgia, whatever balance may be 
found due by the Creek nation, to the citizens of that State, whenever 
the same shall be ascertained in conformity with reference made by 
the Commissioners of Georgia, and the chiefs, headmen, and warriors 
of the Creek nation, to be paid in five annual instalments, without 
interest, provided the same shall not exceed the sum of $250,000, the 
Commissioners of Georgia executing to the Creek nation a full and 
final relinquishment of all claims of the citizens of Georgia against the 
Creek nation, for property taken or destroyed PRIOR to the Act of 
Congress, of one thousand eight hundred and two, regulating the inter- 
course with the Indian tribes." See Treaty, Laws of U. S. — 6th Vol. 
p. 771. 

For whatever trespasses the Georgians had suffered from the 
Creeks since 1802, they had been compensated by the Federal 
Government. An opportunity was now offered for wringing 
from these poor and ignorant savages, compensation for every 
alleged injury committed by them from the first settlement of 
the country up to the year 1802 ! They were about to sell their 
lands, and were made to believe that they were answerable for 
every pig and calf which they or their ancestors had ever stolen 
from their pale-faced neighbors. The Georgians, however, 
kindly agreed that they would not demand more than $250,000 ; 
and the United States most benevolently stipulated, that if the 
Georgians would give the Creeks a receipt in full, that then, 
whatever balance should be found due on these claims, should 
be paid out of the national treasury; this stipulation being 
expressly declared to be part of the consideration given for the 
land, it is therefore obvious, that $250,000 of the consideration 
or price of the land was withheld by the United States, where- 
with to liquidate " whatever balance," not exceeding that sum, 
might be found due to the Georgians. This is certainly one of 
the most extraordinary treaties in the annals of diplomacy. 
The claims to be paid are all undefined, and unlimited as to 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 305 

time, except that no one can be of a shorter standing than twenty 
years/ And these ancient and undescribed claims, after laying 
dormant for twenty years, are now to be paid for by a set of poor 
J half-famished Indians, who can neither read nor write — paid 
j for, too, out of the price which the Federal Government is 
| pleased to allow them for their lands ; and this compulsory pay- 
! ment and virtual robbery are disguised under the form of a 
treaty, to which the Indians are required to attach their marks. 
| Among ourselves, contracts and debts cannot ordinarily be en- 
forced after six years-; but no statute of limitations is permitted 
to avail the helpless tenant of the forest. When claims between 
white men are to be liquidated by a tribunal, each party is heard 
|in his own behalf; but in the present case, a commissioner, ap- 
pointed by the President, heard the allegations of the Georgians 
only, and awarded them what sums he thought proper, from 
funds bonestly belonging to the Creeks. 

The testimony offered by the Georgians has not been pub- 
lished, but we may readily believe it was of a character accord- 
ing with the whole transaction. The award was communicated 
Jo Congress,* and we extract from it the following summary of 
Wlowance for slaves, alleged to have been killed or stolen bv 
! he Creeks, viz. : 



In the year 1 799, 2 slaves, 

\ 7 Z> i ;; :::::::...8oo 

82,' " :: moo 

1784 2 « 75 ° 

188 49 « i' 000 

V 1 ' 250 

1 negro woman killed," 395 

1789, 8 slaves, ' 2 ^ 

1 " negro boy," ".'400 

1790-1801, 21 slaves...... 7) 950 

Total > 91sl ^-es, .^~ : 

This statement gives rise to various reflections. We observe, 
i the first place, that through the agency of the Federal Gov- 
rament, a Georgia slave-holder recovers from the Indians 

* State papers, 1 Sess., 20 Cong, H. of R., Vol. vii, Doc. 268. 



306 jay's works. 

$800, for two slaves who had escaped from him or his ancestors 
forty years before ! The enormous valuation of these slaves 
also deserves notice. It seems, slaves are supposed to have 
been worth, in 1779, when there was no sugar nor cotton culti- 
vation in Georgia, nor man-market in New Orleans, and at a 
time when the whole State was overrun with foreign troops, and 
its cities in possession of the enemy, four hundred dollars a 
head, — double the price they commanded after the peace. 

From the dates of these several claims, we may form some 
idea of the nature of the testimony by which they were sup- 
ported. Of eye-witnesses, it is scarcely possible there could 
have been one — of family traditions, guesses, and assertions, 
there was, no doubt, abundance. It must not be supposed the 
Creeks had to pay for negroes only. In the Indian wars occur- 
ring between 1779 and 1802, the Georgians lost various other 
chattels, for which compensation was allowed on the same liberal 
scale. How the value of a Georgia calf or pig, forty years 
before, was ascertained, we are not informed ; but probably by 
the same process by which it was discovered, that in 1789 a 
"negro boy" was worth $400. But whatever was the roaci 
travelled by the United States Commissioners, they arrived at 
the conclusion that the Creeks owed the Georgians, for property 
taken or destroyed, negroes included, $101,319. This sum 
deducted from the $250,000 retained by the Government, left a 
balance of $148,681. 

Can the reader doubt for a moment to whom this balance 
justly belonged ? A certain value was of course set upon the 
land purchased of the Creeks ; a portion of that value was paid 
in money, and as a " further consideration," the United States 
assumed the payment of the Georgia claims to the amount oil 
$250,000. Had there been no claims, the money reserved 
would of course have belonged to the Creeks. But if the extenl 
of the claims was grossly exaggerated, and the Indians were mack 
to believe they owed more than double the real amount, cai 
there be a question, that on every principle of honor and equity 
the balance left belonged to the Creeks ? Thus thought tin 
Creeks, and they accordingly petitioned Congress for this bal 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 307 

ance, as due to them in part payment for their lands;* but 
Congress thought differently, and not one cent was ever restored 
to them. 

The Georgians who had been so lucky as to have ancestors 
who had lost cows, horses, and negroes in the Indian wars, now 
cast a wistful eye upon this balance. True it was, their anti- 
quated claims had been settled in a manner agreed to by them- 
selves, and receipts in full had been given, and most extravagant 
compensation had been awarded to them. But still, here was 
about $150,000, which most certainly did not belong to the 
Government — and as to paying it to Indians, why that was out 
of the question ; and so they modestly asked for it themselves. 
Their petition was referred to the Committee on Indian affairs ; 
and on the 7th of January, 1834, its chairman, Mr. Gilmer, a 
representative from Georgia, reported in favor of the petitioners. 
He contended that the claimants were entitled, not merely to the 
value of the property taken, but also to compensation for being 
deprived of its use. 

u m A careful examination," proceeds the report, " of the merits of the 
claims, founded on the increase of the female slaves which were taken 
and carried away by those Indians, would, it is believed, lead to a simi- 
lar-result. Those who are at all conversant with the considerations 
which form the criterion by which the value of slave property is esti- 
mated, know that a much higher value is set on a female slave, in con- 
sequence of an anticipation of increase. Therefore, as the claimant 
whose female slave was taken by those Indians, and carried away, had a 
oroperty in expectancy in the issue of such female slave, principles of 
jornmon sense and common justice would award to the rightful owner 
i restitution of such increase, or an equivalent in lieu thereof."f 

People at the North may sometimes count their chickens be- 
bre they are hatched; but it would have been a still more 
•ccult operation for Congress to have calculated the market 
ralue, in 1834, of the children which might have been born of 
|he « negro woman killed " in 1788; and Mr. Gilmer himself 
Ldmitted that the subject was attended with difficulty. It was 
tot, however, necessary to enter into such abstruse inquiries ; 
l 

* State papers, 2 Sess., 20 Cong., Vol. ii, Doc. 80. 

t Reports of Committees, 1 Sess., 23 Cong., Doc. 140. 



308 jay's works. 

all that was wanted was the adoption of some rule which would 
certainly absorb the whole balance, and at the same time give to 
a transfer to the pockets of the Georgians of money belonging 
to the Creeks, the appearance of a payment under the treaty. 
It was discovered that an allowance of interest at the rate of six 
per cent, on the several awards, from the date of each claim, 
would answer the purpose. Thus, on the award of $800 for 
two slaves taken in 1779, fifty-jive years' interest, or $2,G40, 
would be allowed. In this way the claimants would get the 
entire balance, and might divide it pro rata among them. Mr. 
Gilmer accordingly reported a bill, allowing the interest : and 
it is needless to say that it became a law.* 

Having witnessed the justice meted by the Federal Govern- 
ment to the Creek Indians, we request the reader's attention to 
the treatment experienced by the Seminoles, and to 

THE ORIGIN OF THE FLORIDA "WAR. 

It will be recollected that in 181 G the slave-holders complained 
that their fugitive slaves found refuge in Florida, then be- 

* The claim for interest was early made, and was refused by the President, 
on the report of the Attorney-General, Mr. Wirt, to whom it had been re- 
ferred. The report, after showing that the demand for interest was not justi- 
fied by law or practice, proceeded to insist that it was, moreover, inequitable. 
The following extract places in a strong light the injustice of Gilmer's bill, 
and the servility of the northern members who voted for it. 

" If the Commissioner, in assessing these damages, has given to the citi- 
zens of Georgia strict and stinted measure, there is nothing offensive to 
equity in their asking for interest; but if he has already given them vindic- 
tive, and even double damages, the addition of interest to such damages is 
not, I think, a demand for which equity, of her own accord, would cry aloud. 
. . . . Has the Commissioner been strict in calling on the Georgia claim- 
ants for proof of the affirmative fact that the property for which they made 
their claims was in being, and within the Creek nation at the date of the re- 
spective treaties ? On the contrary, he has, in every instance, presumed this 
fact in favor of the claimants, without proof. .... As to the standard 
of value — the epoch, with relation to which the values are to be considered, 
is from 1783 to 1892 ; that is, from twenty to forty years ago. The region of 
country to be regarded with reference to the same subject, is the frontiers 
of Georgia. In relation to that country, and in relation to that time, negroes, 
old and young, men, women and children, are valued at an average of $365.- 
80; horses of all ages and descriptions are valued at an average of $87.41: 
and in the same proportion in regard to other articles, which I understand is 
fixing the property at an average of double its value at that time, and in that 
quarter of the country. If this be so, equity, so far from demanding, would 
revolt from the proposition of adding interest to such a valuation — it would 
be usury, noHntcrest — prodigality, not justice." Rep., No. 128, 1 Sess., 20 
Conq. 

Yet this usury and prodigality were voted to the Georgia slave-holders by 
northern members, at the expense of the Indians. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 309 

longing to the crown of Spain ; and that, regardless of the 
obligations of neutrality, a naval force had been sent by the 
Government up the river Appalachicola, to destroy a fort con- 
taining about 800 negroes, most of whom were slaughtered. 
This territory was afterwards ceded to the United States ; and 
I for several years past, the Government has been waging a 
relentless and most disastrous war against its aboriginal inhab- 
j itants, with the avowed design of driving them from the Penin- 
l sula. It is not our design to write the history of this war, but 
j merely to expose its true origin, and to explain the motives 
which have led the whites to insist on the expulsion of the 
j Seminoles, and the causes which have induced the latter to of- 
fer a resistance unparalleled in savage warfare, for persevering 
[ and desperate courage and ferocity. 

The sacrifice on our part, of blood, of treasure, and of milita- 
ry honor in this war, is well known to be prodigious. Thirty 
millions of dollars have already, it is said, been expended — 
our best generals have been baffled, and their laurels withered ; 
and our troops have perished in great numbers, in contests witli 
their savage foe, and by the sickliness of the climate. And yet 
no rational cause is assigned by the Government for this disas- 
trous war. No reason is given why it is necessary, at all hazards, 
and at every expense, to drive the Seminoles from Florida. 
The whites are few in number, have far more land than they 
can occupy, and certainly do not want the wet and unwholesome 
everglades possessed by the Indians, and into which, we are 
told, white men can only penetrate at certain seasons of the 
year, without exposing their lives to almost certain destruction. 
But were the Seminoles so numerous that it was necessary to 
remove them, to make room for the whites, or so powerful as to 
render it unsafe to plant white settlements in Florida ? We' 
learn from official reports, that they numbered about 3000 ! * 

: * I herewith enclose for your information, a copy of the general plan of 
operations which I have adopted for the removal of the Seminoles. I have 
issumed that the round number of three thousand embraces all, of every de- 
scription." Wiley Thompson, Jr., Agent, Sept. 3, 1835. " I consider the 
Population, including negroes, not to exceed 3000, of which I should say 1600 
|KE females." Joseph Harris, Disbursing Agent of Florida Indians, Sept. 

27 



310 jay's works. 

Major-General Jessup, the commanding officer of the army, and 
well acquainted with the existing condition of the Territory, in 
a letter to the Secretary of War, Feh. 11, 1837, makes the fol- 
lowing candid avowal : 

" We have committed the error of attempting to remove them (the 
Seminoles) when their lands were not required for agricultural purposes ; 
when they were not in the way of the white inhabitants, and when the 
greater portion of their country was an unexplored wilderness, of the 
interior of which we were as ignorant as of the interior of China. . . 
. . I do not consider the country south of Chickasa Hatchee worth 
the medicines we shall expend in driving the Indians from it." 

Why, then, all this waste of blood and treasure ? We ali- 
gner TO FREVENT FUGITIVE SLAVES FROM FINDING AN 

ASYLUM AMOMG THE INDIANS ! 

We well know how unwillingly this truth will be received by 
those among us who contend that the North has nothing to do 
with slavery; but we appeal to facts — and to facts about which 
there is and can be no dispute. 

Florida borders upon two slave States, Alabama and Georgia, 
and is not far distant from two others, Mississippi and Louis- 
iana. It is not, therefore, surprising that slaves from these 
States, escaping from their masters, should seek refuge in the 
huts of the Seminoles. We have already seen that the Federal 
Government have lately awarded upwards of $5000 to the gal- 
lant officers and seamen who destroyed 300 fugitive slaves in 
Florida, in 1816. The terrible example then made, was not, it 
seems, effectual ; for in 1825, the War Department issued an 
order on the subject of fugitive slaves among the Seminoles, and 
the Indian Agent at Tallahassee was directed to take measures 
to enable the claimants to identify their property for its imme- 
diate restoration. " Let the chiefs distinctly understand," wrote 
the Agent, agreeably to his instructions, " that they are not to 
harbor runaway negroes ; and that they will be required to give 
up such negroes as are now residing within their limits." * 

* State papers, 1 Sess., 19 Cong., Vol. iv, Doc. 7-i, p. 82.| 



AOTION OF TUE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 311 

An Alabama paper, speaking of the war, makes the following 
confession : 

" It is the power to entice away and instruct in bush-fighting so many 
of our slaves, that we would wish to annihilate. These Seminoles can- 
not remain in the Peninsula of Florida xoithout threatening the internal 
safety of the South." 

In 1834, a petition, signed by about one hundred of the in- 
habitants of Alachua county, Florida, was presented to Presi- 
dent Jackson, praying for his interposition against the Seminoles. 

_ " "While the lawless and indomitable people (says the petition) con- 
tinue where they now are, the owners of slaves in our territory, and 
even in the States contiguous, cannot for a moment, in any thin^ like 
security, enjoy the possession of this description of property. Does a 
negro become tired of the service of his owner, he has only to flee to 
the Indian country, where he will find ample safety against pursuit. It 
is a fact which, if not susceptible of proof, is notwithstanding, and 
upon good ground, firmly believed, that there is at this time living under 
the protection of the Seminole Indians, a large number, probably more 
than one hundred slaves, who have absconded from their masters in 
the neighboring States and in Florida, since the treaty of Camp Moul- 
trie. Within a few weeks several parties are known to have sought 
and found shelter in the nation, where they continue secure against 

every effort of their owners to recover them There 

are, as it is believed, more than five hundred negroes residing with the 
Seminole Indians, four-fifths of whom are runaways, or descendants of 

runaways It is perfectly obvious that during the 

existence of such a state of things, the interests of this fertile and 
promising section of Florida cannot flourish ; and we are constrained 
to repeat, that there is no rational prospect for the better, so long as 
the Indians are suffered to remain in their present location." 

The petition concludes with recommending " the immediate 
and efficient action of the government." * 

In the spring of 1839, a sort of armistice was concluded with 
the Seminoles. This gave vast offence to the slave-holders, and* 
at a public meeting held at Tallahassee, it was resolved, " That 
the peninsula of Florida is the last place in the limits of the 
United States wherein the Indians should be permitted to re- 
mai?i" For this assertion, the following among other reasons 
was assigned : "If located in Florida, all the runaway slaves 
will find refuge and protection with them" 

* 1 Sess., 24 Cong., Doc. 271. 



312 jay's works. 

The New Orleans Courier of July 27, 1839, in reference to 
this sanie_ subject remarks : 

" Every year's delay in subduing the Seminoles adds to the risk of 
their being joined by runaway slaves from the adjacent States, and in- 
creases the danger of a rising among the serviles." 

Slavery, then, is the key which unlocks the enigma of the 
Florida war. To break up a refuge for runaway slaves, thirty 
millions have already been expended ; and if necessary, thirty 
millions more will be expended for the same object. 

But it may be said, however satisfactorily the foregoing facts 
may account for the conduct of the Federal Government, they 
do not explain the astonishing and peculiar inveteracy manifest- 
ed by these Seminoles towards the whites. Other tribes have 
without difficulty been removed to the west of the Mississippi ; 
why then do these Indians alone oifer a resistance to a superior 
power, more determined and more heroic than perhaps any 
recorded in history ? Again does slavery solve the difficulty! 

It is very obvious that the Seminoles have been universally 
exasperated. Their extreme hatred to the whites has unques- 
tionably been owing in part to the gross and wicked frauds which 
they believe (with too much apparent reason) were practised in 
the treaty of Payne's Landing, under Avhich they were required 
to remove from Florida. But the great and prevailing cause of 
their deep-seated hostility, is to be sought for in a long train of 
frauds and injuries, of which they have been the victims on 
account of their slaves ; and likewise in the dread of Christian 
slavery, entertained by the negroes who belong to, or have joined 
the Seminoles. 

Of the hostile chiefs, the most active, persevering, and daring, 
was the celebrated Oseola. It is said that this man's mother 
was seized and carried into Georgia as a slave, under pretence 
that she was the daughter of a fugitive negress. If this story, 
which has found its way into the. public papers, be true, the 
wrongs of the mother have been terribly avenged by the son. 

That the reader may understand the narratives we are about 
to lay before him, he must bear in mind that the Seminoles, like 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 313 

their more civilized neighbors, are slave-holders, but, unlike 
them, they exercise their authority in such a manner as to ren- 
der their slaves unwilling to leave them. The slaves are in 
fact little more than tenants of kind and familiar landlords, and 
regarded with horror the very idea of being transferred from 
their heathen to Christian masters. But there were many of 
the whites who were exceedingly anxious to make the transfer. 
The agent, Wiley Thompson, thus wrote to the Secretary of 
War (October 27, 1834) : 

'_' There arc many very likely negroes in this nation. Some of the 
whites in the adjacent settlements manifest a restless desire to obtain 
them, and I have no doubt that Indian-raised negroes are now in pos- 
session of the whites." 

The volume of documents submitted to Congress, June 3, 
1836, and entitled "Seminole Hostilities," from which we quote, 
contains many illustrations of the agent's assertion ; we can 
spare room for only a portion of them. 

It appears that Conchattimico, a Florida chief, was the pos- 
sessor of a number of slaves, the title to whom was disputed by 
another Indian, who sold his claim to a white man. The means 
taken by the purchaser to obtain the slaves, are thus described 
by the agent in his letter to the War Department, January 20, 
1834: 

" I was informed by the sub-agent, that Conchattimico sent a runner 
for him not long since; that he immediately repaired to the old 
chiefs town, where he arrived in the night, and found the Indians and 
negroes greatly excited and in arms ; and that very soon thereafter 
Vacca Pcchassie, with fifteen or more of his warriors in arms arrived, 
for the purpose of aiding in resistance of a threatened violent attempt 
to force^ the slaves out of Conchattimico's possession. Persons in- 
terested in the adverse claim, were frequently seen hovering about the 
reserve ; and the chief was informed that attempts had been made to 
bribe commanders of steamboats, on the river, to aid in accomplishing 
[the capture of the slaves. . . . Under such circumstances I could 
jnot but approve the order given by the sub-agent to Conchattimico, to 
^defend Ids property by force, should a violent attempt be made to wrest 
•it from him." 

I Shortly after this, Judge Cameron, of the United States Dis- 
trict Court, investigated the white man's claim to these slaves, 
ind pronounced it groundless. Notwithstanding this decision, 
27* 



314 jay's works. 

the claim was again sold to a company of whites, who resolved 
to relieve the chief of his property. But as the chief intended 
to protect it by force of arms, the enterprise was not free from 
danger. The expedient resorted to by the kidnappers is thus 
explained in a letter from the late Governor of the Territory to 
the Secretary of War, May 23, 1836. 

" I herewith transmit you a petition from the Indian chief Conchat- 
timico, to be laid before Congress should you consider that necessary. 
Taking forcibly the slaves of this chief, after those men had created an 
alarm among the white inhabitants which resulted in disarming the 
Indians, was an outrage well calculated to rouse them to hostility. The 
alarm was concerted by these violators of all law, solely with the view 
of obtaining, without danger of resistance, the slaves of the chief. I 
have no expectation the slaves referred to in the petition will ever be 
obtained, as I take it for granted they have been carried to a great 
distance and sold." 

This Conchattimico was a friendly chief, having no intercourse 
with the hostile Seminoles ; but on the report being raised that 
he was about to join the enemy, he surrendered Ms arms to quiet 
the apprehensions, real or affected, of his white neighbors. No 
sooner had he thus rendered himself defenceless, than a party of 
Georgians carried off his slaves, twenty ha number, and valued 
at $15,000. 

We have already seen how profitable it is for a Georgian to 
lose a slave among the Indians ; but Congress has provided no 
fund to indemnify the Indian master for the slaves of which he 
may be robbed by Georgians. 

Another friendly Florida chief, Pechassie, thus complains to 
the agent (28th July, 1835) : 

" I am induced to write you in consequence of the depredations 
making-, and attempted to be made on my farm, by a company of men, 
negro-stealers ; some of whom are from Columbus, (Georgia,) and have 
connected themselves with Brown and Douglas. It is reported, and 
believed by all the white people around here, that a large number of 
them will very shortly come down here, and attempt to take off Billy, 
Jim, Rose and her family, and others (slaves.) ... I should like 
to have your advice how I should act. I dislike to make any trouble, 
or have any difficulty with the white people ; but if they will trespass 
on my premises, and on my rights, I must defend myself the best way 
I can. . . Please direct me how to act in this matter. Douglas and 
his company hired a man, who has two large trained dogs for the pur- 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 315 

pose, to come down and take Billy. The man came, but seeing lie 
could do nothing alone, has gone off somewhere, probably to recruit. 
He is from Mobile, and follows for a livelihood catching runaway 
negroes with these large dogs." 

By a letter from the United States Attorney, we find that 
Pechassie was subsequently " robbed of all the negroes he had, 
six in number." 

As these robberies were committed on friendly chiefs, and 
after the commencement of the Seminole war, they excited the 
attention and alarm of the officers of government, and hence 
probably it is that official notice was taken of them. They may 
give us some idea of the provocations which preceded and 
caused the war. Indeed, the documents before us incidentally 
sbow, that the " likely negroes " of the Seminoles now in arms, 
were as strongly coveted by the whites, as the slaves of the friend- 
ly chiefs. By a treaty made with the Seminoles in 1832, the 
Federal Government, with its usual solicitude for the interests 
of slave-holders, assumed the payment of all claims on the 
Indians for " slaves and other property," to the amount . of 
$7,000. A scramble of course ensued for the money, and a 
voluminous correspondence took place between the agent and 
the Secretary of "War, respecting claims for Indian slaves ; and 
it appears that the Seminoles had been harassed for years by the 
contrivances of the whites to rob them of their slaves. The 
following is a sample. It seems that a Mrs. Hanna claimed a 
negro woman and her increase, in possession of the Seminoles. 
The claim had been made known to the War Department, and so 
long ago as the 8th of March, 1828, the following mandate had 
been issued to the Indian agent : 

" The Secretary of War directs that you forthwith deliver to Mary 
Hanna, widow, or her agent, the slaves claimed by her, and take a 
bond imposing the obligation on her to abide by such decision as it 
may be esteemed proper to seek, in testing the right of ownership in 
the property in question." 

We have here a specimen of the justice ineted by our govern- 
[ ment to the Indians. A woman claims a slave in the possession 
of an Indian. Without the slightest inquiry into the justice 
of the claim, the property is ordered to be wrested forthwith 



316 jay's wokks. 

from the possessor and delivered to the claimant, and then, as 
if in utter mockery, the woman is to give her bond to abide any 
decision that may hereafter be made as to the legality of her 
claim. Who is to obtain this decision ? Certainly not the 
woman ; and should the poor ignorant Indian go to law, where 
Would" he look for Mrs. Hanna or her slaves ? From some 
cause not explained, the wicked and absurd order of the Secre- 
tary was not executed; and on the 2d of March, 1835, seven 
years after, a second order from the Secretary of "War directed 
the agent " to afford whatever facilities may be in his power, 
upon the claim being established by proper proof before the compe- 
tent tribunal, to have the property restored to Mrs. Hanna." 
Should the reader be struck with the remarkable moral differ- 
ence between these two orders, the explanation is easy, — the 
office was filled at the time of the first order by a slave-holder ; 
at the time of the second, by a northern gentleman. The agent 
now investigated the case, and it was discovered that the father 
of Mrs. Hanna, about the year 1815, had sold the woman in 
question, then full grown, to a Seminole, for forty steers, and 
had afterwards, as was alleged, given the same woman to his 
daughter ; and on this pretended gift Mrs. Hanna claimed, not 
merely the woman, who had now lived twenty-five years with 
the Indians, but also all the children she had borne within that 
time! 

On the 12th of December, 1834, the agent wrote to the Secre- 
tary, that a Seminole woman of the name of Nelly, inherited 
from her father " a considerable number of slaves," that a man 
named Floyd claims the whole of them by virtue of a bill of 
sale, and that Nelly insists that " Floyd imposed on her by pre- 
senting for her signature a bill of sale for all the negroes, 
instead of a written authority to him to recover some for her."* 
The agent adds, he has seen no one who pretends that Floyd 
paid her for the negroes, and that the universal impression is, 
that she was grossly imposed upon. 

If civilized and Christian slave-holders are ready to murder, 
or, to use Mr. Preston's phrase, to HANG abolitionists for 

*A portion of them were claimed by another Indian. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 317 

questioning their moral right to hold property in man, we may 
judge what must have been the exasperation of the Seminoles 
at these multiplied attempts to rob them of their slaves. 

There is still another mode in which slavery has operated to 
produce and continue the war in Florida. Although the expul- 
sion of the Seminoles from the peninsula was devoutly desired 
by the whites, no inclination was felt to send their "likely 
negroes" to the west of the Mississippi. Of these negroes some 
were stolen, others claimed under fraudulent pretexts, and 
others it was proposed to purchase of their masters. General R. 
K. Call addressed a letter to President Jackson, (March 22, 
1835,) asking leave "to purchase one hundred and fifty" 
of the Seminole negroes. "These negroes," he affirms, "are 
violently opposed to leaving the country. If the Indians are 
permitted to convert them into specie, one great obstacle in the 
way of removal may be overcome." The applicant was in- 
formed that no permission was necessary, there being no legal 
prohibition to the Indians selling their slaves. Agents were 
forthwith despatched to the nation, to buy up negroes. Mr. W. 
Thompson, the agent, however, assumed the responsibility of 
prohibiting these agents from commencing their negotiations ; 
and assigned his reasons in a very able letter to the Secretary 
of War (April 27, 1835) : 

" The intercourse laws," he remarked, " prohibited the purchase of 
an Indian pony by a member of civilized society, without permission 
from the agent ; and why, but because the Indian is considered in a 
state of pupilage, and incapable of protecting himself against the arts 
and wiles of civilized man ? If the Indian's interest in a pony is of so 
much importance in the estimation of the government, as to require 
such strict guards to be thrown around it, the protection of his interest 
in his slave should be esteemed more important, by as much as the 
latter is moi-e valuable than the former species of property. If, in the 
regulation of the sale of ponies, the United States exercise a rightful 
power, the obligation on them to guard the interest of the Indian in 
his slave, is greatly more imposing. The negroes in the nation dread 
the idea of being transferred from their present state of ease and com- 
parative liberty, to bondage and hard labor, under overseers, on sugar 
■and cotton plantations. 

j _ " They have always had a great influence over the Indians. They 
(live in villages separate, and in many instances remote from their 
owners, and enjoying equal liberty with their owners, with the single 
exception that the slave supplies his owner annually from the product 



818 jay's works. 

of his little field, with corn in proportion to the amount of the crop — 
in no instance that has come to my knowledge, exceeding ten bushels : 
the residue is considered the property of the slave. Many of these 
slaves have stocks of horses, cows and hogs, with which the Indian 
owner never assumes a right to intermeddle. I am thus particular on 
this point, that you may understand the true cause of the abhorrence of 
the negroes, of every idea of change. And the indulgence so extended 
to the slave, will enable you to credit the assertion, that an Indian 
would almost as soon sell his child as his slave, except when under the 
influence of intoxicating liquors." 

We have here a picture of certainly a very extraordinary 
system of slavery. Slaves abhorring a change, and masters no 
more thinking of selling a slave than a child ! But then these 
Indians were heathen, and perhaps it was from not adverting to 
this fact, that General Call took for granted they would be glad 
to convert men, women, and children into specie. President 
Jackson was equally inconsiderate. The agent was answered : 

" The President is of opinion that the opportunity to sell their 
slaves will be an inducement for the Seminoles to remove. . . . Nor 
is it considered that the permission to the Indians to sell would be an 
inhuman act. It is not to be presumed the condition of these slaves 
would be worse than that of others in the same section of country." 

To this presumption of executive philanthropy, the agent 
forcibly replied, June 17th, 1835 : 

" The remark in your letter that ' it is not to be presumed the 
condition of these slaves would be worse than that of others in the 
same section of country,' is true ; yet you will agree with me, that the 
same remark would be applicable to myself, or to any other individual in 
the United States, as we should, if subjected to slavery, be in the pre- 
cise condition of our fellow slaves. . . . Any one at all acquainted 
with the condition of the negro, as connected with his Indian owner 
here, could not fail to admit that the change with him would be 
ojipressively great." 

Mr. Thompson farther remarked to the Secretary of War : 

" If the Department could be satisfied that the undeniable abhorrence 
of the negroes in this nation to the idea of being transferred from the 
present state of ease and comparative freedom, to sugar and cotton 
plantations, under the control of severe task-masters,* had been made 

* Mr. Thompson was not an abolitionist, but had lately been a representa- 
tive in Congress from the State of Georgia. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 319 

to subserve the views of government, by inducing the negroes to exert 
their known influence over the Indians, through pledges made to them, 
accompanied by assurances that their removal west would, more than 
any thing else, serve to secure the existing relations between them and 
the Indians, then surely the Department, instead of classing them with 
the Indian skins and furs, would require a punctilious redemption ot 
those pledges. I have not heard of a solitary Indian desiring the 
privilege to sell." 

The President at last yielded, and the agent was authorized 
to prohibit any person entering the nation to buy slaves. But 
it was too late : the negroes well knew how anxious the whites 
were to possess them, and they reasonably feared that if the 
Indians were expelled, instead of being permitted to accompany 
their kind masters, they would be consigned to the cruel and 
detested service of Georgia and Alabama planters. Hence, 
impelled by the most powerful motives which can stimulate the 
heart and neiwe the arm of man, they resisted to the utmost the 
emigration of their masters, and in the deadly struggle that 
ensued, evinced their devotion to the Indians, and their abhor- 
rence of the whites, by a ferocious and successful courage which 
may well send a thrill of fearful anticipation throughout the 
slave-region. 

We now submit to our readers whether the facts we have 
exhibited do not prove beyond all doubt that the blood and 
treasure expended in the Florida war, have been expended for 
the sole purpose of breaking up a refuge for fugitive slaves ; and 
that the Seminoles have been goaded into their extraordinary 
and desperate resistance, by the frauds and robberies of slave- 
holders ? 

THE EFFORTS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PREVENT 
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN TOE ISLAND OF CUBA. 

At the time of the Congress of Panama, Spain was still at 
war with her late colonies, and of course they were authorized, 
by every principle of national law, as well as of self-defence, to 
carry their arms into the dominions of their enemy. Cuba was 
at a short distance, devoted to the royal cause, and affording a 
depot for a naval force ever ready to prey upon the commerce 



820 jay's avorks. 

of the republics. Under these circumstances, Mexico and Co- 
lombia meditated the invasion and conquest of that island. But 
these republics, on achieving their own freedom, had given 
freedom to their slaves ; and it was probable that they would 
manifest equal regard for human rights, were they to become 
masters of Cuba. These remarks will explain the following 
extract from the instructions given to the ministers appointed to 
represent the United States at the Congress : 

" It is required by the frank and friendly relations which we most 
anxiously desire ever to cherish with the new republics, that you should, 
without reserve, explicitly state that the United States have too much 
at stake, in the fortunes of Cuba, to allow them to see with indifference 
a war of invasion prosecuted in a desolating manner, or to see employed, 
in the purposes of such a war, one race of the inhabitants combating 
against another, upon principles and with motives that must inevitably 
lead, if not to the extermination of one party or the other, to the 
most shocking excesses. The humanity of the United States in re- 
spect to the weaker, and which in such a terrible struggle woukfprob- 
ably be the suffering portion, and the duty to defend themselves against 
the contagion of such near and dangerous examples, would constrain 
them, even at the hazard of losing the friendship of Mexico and Co- 
lombia, to employ all the means necessary to their security."* 

The obvious meaning of all this, in plain English, divested of 
its diplomatic circumlocution, is simply that the Federal Gov- 
ernment, in order to protect the slavery of the South from the 
shock it might receive from emancipation in Cuba, would, if 
necessary, go to war with our sister republics to prevent the 
.invasion of that island. 

But so long as Spain refused to acknowledge the independence 
of her revolted colonies, the war would be continued, Cuba would 
be exposed to invasion, and the slave States to the " contagion," 
of emancipation. Hence the cabinet at Washington became 
exceedingly anxious to act the part of peace-makers. Our 
Minister at St. Petersburg was instructed " to endeavor to en- 
gage the Kussian Government to contribute its best exertions 
towards terminating the existing contest between Spain and her 
colonies. From the vicinity of Cuba to the United States, its 

* Letter of Instructions from Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, to Messrs. 
Anderson and Sargent, May 8th, 1826. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 321 

valuable commerce, and the nature of its population, their gov- 
ernment cannot be indifferent to any political change to which 
that island may be destined."* 

Spain also was implored, through the American Minister at 
Madrid, to be reconciled to her undutiful children. 

"It is not for the new republics," said Mr. Clay in his letter, (27th 
April, 1825,) to Mr. Everett, "that the President wishes you to urge 
upon Spain the expediency of concluding the war. If the war should 
continue between Spain and the new republics, and those islands 
(Cuba and Porto Rico) should become the object and theatre of it, 
their fortunes have such a connection with the people of the United 
States, that they could not be indifferent spectators ; and the possible 
contingencies of a protracted war might bring upon the Government of 
the United States duties and obligations, the performance of which, how- 
ever painful it should be, they might not be at liberty to decline."\ 

The proposed invasion was abandoned ; but the fears of our 
government were not allayed. The war continued, and some 
contingency arising from it might give liberty to the tens of 
thousands in Cuba pining in bonds. A new attempt was made 
to induce Spain to remove the danger by concluding the war. 
On the 22d of October, 1829, Mr. Van Buren, then Secretary 
of State, instructed Mr. Van Ness, our Minister in Spain, to 
press upon that court a reconciliation with the South American 
republics. 

" Considerations," he remarked, " connected with a certain class of 
our population, make it the interest of the southern section of the Union, 
that no attempt should be made in that island to throw off the yoke of 
Spanish dependence ; the first effect of which would be the sudden 
emancipation of a numerous slave population, whose result could not but 
be very sensibly felt upon the adjacent shores of the United States." 

Fortunate is it for the cause of humanity, that the greatest 
republic upon earth had not the power to pi-event " the sudden 
emancipation of a numerous slave population " in the British 
West Indies, on the 1st of August, 1838, "whose result," blessed 

* Letter from Mr. Clay to Mr. Middleton, 10th May, 1825. \ 
t Senate Documents, 1st Sess., 19 Cong., Vol. iii. 
28 



322 JAY S WORKS. 

be God, is and will be "very sensibly felt on the adjacent 
shores of the United States." * 

The subject of the Panama mission was debated at great 
length in both Houses of Congress, and frequent allusions were 
made by the speakers to Cuba. Let us hearken to the senti- 
ments expressed by some of our republican legislators. 

Mr. Randolph of Virginia : — " Cuba possesses an immense negro 
population. In case those States (Mexico and Colombia) should invade 
Cuba at all, it is unquestionable that this invasion will be made with 
this principle, — this genius of universal emancipation, — this sweeping 
anathema against the white population in front, — and then sir, what is 
the situation of the southern Slates? " 

Mr. Johnson of Louisiana : — " We know that Colombia and Mexico 
have long contemplated the independence of that island (Cuba.) The 
final decision is now to be made, and the combination of forces and 
plan of attack to be formed. What, then, at such a crisis, becomes 
the duty of the Government ? Send your ministers instantly to this 
diplomatic assembly, where the measure is maturing. Advise with 
them — remonstrate — menace, if necessary, against a step so danger- 
ous to us, and perhaps fatal to them." 

Mr. Berrien of Georgia : — " The question to be determined is this : 
With a due regard to the safety of the southern States, can you suffer 
these islands (Cuba and Porto Rico) to pass into the hands of BUC- 
CANEERS, drunk with their new-born liberty ? If our interests and 
our safety shall require us to say to these new republics, Cuba and 
Porto Rico must remain as they are, we are free to say it, and by the 
blessing of God and the strength of our arms, to enforce the declara- 
tion ; and let me say to gentlemen, these high considerations do require 
it. The vital interests of the South demand it." 

These new republics were stigmatized by this honorable gen- 
tleman as buccaneers ; not that they were robbers, but because 
they had ceased to rob the poor and helpless ; and the evidence 
of their being drunk with liberty, was their practical acknowl- 

*The following extract from the Raleigh Register (N. C.) proves that the 
idea of interference by our Government to prevent West India emancipation, 
was contemplated by some of the slave-holders. 

•' Emancipation of West India Slavery. 

" The news brought by the late arrivals of the determination of Great 
Britain, to emancipate the slaves of her AVest India Islands, is replete with 
interest to the people of this Union. If such a measure is in contemplation, 
and we see no reason to doubt it, can our Government look quietly on, and see 
it consummated f " 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. o2o 

edgment of the principles of human rights, professed in our 
declaration of independence. 

Mr. Floyd of Virginia: — " So far as I can see, in all its bearings, it 
(the Panama Congress) looks to the conquest of Cuba and Porto 
Rico ; or, at all events, of tearing them from the crown of Spain. The 
interests, if not safety of our own country, would rather require us to 
interpose to prevent such an event, and I would rather take up arms 
to prevent than to accelerate such an occurrence." Congressional 
Debates, 2d vol. 

The facts and sentiments we have now exhibited, prove beyond 
cavil, that this mighty republic volunteered to solicit the aid of 
foreign monarchs to perpetuate slavery in Cuba, and was strongly 
disposed to incur the hazard and calamities of war in the cause, — 
not of liberty, but of bondage. 

Having noticed our watchful guardianship over Cuba, we will' 
next advert to 

THE HOSTILITY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO HAITI. 

To do justice to this part of our subject, we must beg the 
patience of the reader while we briefly lay before him a few 
historical facts. 

The Island of St. Domingo was one of the most valuable 
colonies belonging to the crown of France. It is about 450 
miles long, and 150 wide. Its population in 1790, was esti- 
mated as follows : 

White inhabitants, 42,000 

Free colored inhabitants, 44,000 

Slaves, 600,000 

Total, 68G,000 

Of the free colored inhabitants, numerically equal with the 
whites, many were men of education and property, landed pro- 
prietors, and the holders of slaves. Still they were debarred 
from all political privileges on account of their complexion. At 
the commencement of the French Kevolution, the National 
Assembly abolished this discrimination on account of color, and 
gave the free blacks in the colonies, the same civil rights that 



324 jay's works. 

\tere possessed by their white brethren. The pride of the latter 
led them to refuse submission to this humiliating decree of the 
mother country, and a civil war between the whites and the free 
blacks ensued. ' No interference whatever with the rights of 
slave-holders as such, had at this time been attempted, either 
in France or the colony ; and the dissensions which convulsed 
the island, for a long time related exclusively to the political 
condition of the free colored population. In August, 1791, a 
partial insurrection of the slaves occurred, favored by the quar- 
rels of their masters. In some instances the free blacks united 
with the whites, in their efforts to suppress the insurrection, and 
in others, they availed themselves of the aid of the revolted 
slaves, against the planters. 

In 1792, the French Government sent over three commis- 
sioners, with 6000 troops, to enforce their decree respecting the 
free blacks, and to restore order. Many of the planters, how- 
ever, still resisted, while others took sides with the Government ; 
and the distractions of the island were now aggravated by a 
civil war between the whites themselves. 

A portion of the planters, abhorring the attempt of the Gov- 
ernment to elevate the free blacks to a political ecpiality with 
themselves, now intrigued with Great Britain to seize upon the 
island, and thus to save them from the degrading consequences 
of republican principles. In compliance with their invitation, 
conveyed through their agent, M. Charmilly, an expedition was 
fitted out at Jamaica, for the capture of St. Domingo ; and on 
the 19th of September, 1793, arrived "at Jeremie. Only a few 
days before the appearance of the British fleet on the coast, 
one of the French commissioners, who happened at the moment 
to be acting, alone, in the absence of his colleagues, having 
received intelligence of the intended invasion, and knowing 
the disaffection of the planters, issued a hasty proclamation, 
giving freedom to all the slaves, as the only means of preserv- 
ing the colony from conquest.* 

The free negroes and the manumitted slaves united in defend- 

* The ensuing year, 1794, by a decree of the National Assembly, slavery 
was formally abolished throughoiit all the French colonies. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 325 

ing the island against the invaders, while an army of 2000 of 
the white inhabitants ranged themselves under the British 
standard. The French commissioners soon after returned to 
France; great numbers of the planters emigrated; and the 
island was virtually abandoned to the blacks, except so* much of 
it as was occupied by the British troops. These troops were 
from time to time reinforced by detachments from Europe and 
the "West Indies — but in vain. The blacks under Toussaint, 
who was appointed by the government at home, " Governor 
General of the armies of St. Domingo," continued the contest 
for about five years, and finally succeeded in driving the English 
from the island. Britain being in the mean time at war with 
France, her naval forces prevented all intercourse between the 
colony and the mother country : and the blacks, thus left to 
themselves, declared themselves independent on the 1st of July, 
1798, and organized the Government of Hatti. 

The peace of Ameins afforded Bonaparte an opportunity to 
attempt the subjugation of the island, and the reduction of its 
inhabitants to slavery. 

Early in January, 1802, a French army of 20,000 men was 
landed in St. Domingo, and various reinforcements afterwards 
followed. 

The war was waged with atrocious cruelty on the part of the 
French, and the blacks, aided by the climate, succeeded in de- 
stroying about 40,000 of their enemies in eleven months ; and 
on the 19th of November, 1802, the wrecks of the invading 
army surrendered to Dessalines, the black chief. Since this 
time Hayti has continued an independent nation, perfectly inof- 
fensive in all its foreign relations ; and its entire sovereignty is 
at present fully acknowledged by both France and England, and 
undisputed by any power on earth. 

It is now important to inquire, what has been the conduct of 
the United States towards this heroic republic ? 

Twelve years after slavery had been abolished by a decree of 

the French Government ; after the expulsion of the armies of 

England and France ; when for three years not a hostile foot 

had pressed the soil of Hayti ; when a regularly organized gov- 

28* 



326 jay's works. 

ernment was in full operation ; and without one solitary cause 
of complaint against the new State, the American Congress 
passed an act, (February 28, 1806,) "to suspend the commercial 
intercourse between the United States and certain parts of the 
Island of St. Domingo." These certain parts were defined in 
the act, to be such parts as were not " in the possession and 
under the acknowledgment of France ; " and of course included 
the whole island. As there was at this time no Avar in fact, be- 
tween Hayti and France, and the latter was prevented by the 
naval superiority of England, and her own continental wars, 
from sending a single soldier to Hayti, the sole object of this 
act was to distress and harass the Haytiens by depriving them 
of the bread-stuffs and other necessaries they were accustomed 
to receive from this country. It was a piece of wanton cruelty, 
unrequired by the obligations of neutrality ; and demanded by 
France in a tone of arrogance, which would have secured its 
rejection, had not the intended victims been black. Bonaparte, 
irritated by the loss of his army, and the defeat of his designs 
upon Hayti, resolved to starve, if possible, a people whom he 
could not conquer ; and he found in the Federal Government, a 
willing instrument of his vengeance. His Minister at Wash- 
ington, in a letter to the Secretary of State, demanded an 
immediate cessation of the commerce between the citizens of 
the United States and " the rebels of St. Domingo — that race 
of African slaves, the reproach and the refuse of nature' ; " and 
he enforced his demand with the information : " The Emperor 
and King, my master, expects from the dignity and candor of 
the Government of the Union, that an end be put to it prompt- 
ly." * The letter was written in January ; and in February the 
act required was passed, and continued in force for two years. 

The invitation to the United States to send ministers to the 
Congress of Panama, has been already mentioned. In the doc- 
ument conveying the invitation, it was remarked : 

" On what basis the relations of Hayti, and other parts of our hem- 
isphere that shall hereafter be in like circumstances, are to be placed, 
is a question simple at first view, but attended with serious difficulties 

* American State Papers, Vol. v, p. 154. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 327 

when closely examined. These arise from the different manner of 
regarding Africans, and from their different rights in Hayfi, the United 
States, and in the American States. This question will be determined 
at the Isthmus." * 

The invitation was accepted, and the instructions to our min- 
isters contained the following : 

" Under the actual circumstances of Hayti, the President does not 
think that it would be proper at this time to recognize it as a new 
State." f 

This, be it remembered, was just a quarter of a century since 
the Haytiens had declared and maintained their independence, 
and at a moment when they were enjoying the blessings and 
exercising the prerogatives of an independent State, and at 
peace with all the world. And what motive prompted the 
United States thus to exert its influence to prevent the Congress 
of Panama from recognizing Hayti "as a new State?" — none 
other than the apprehension that the admission of a palpable 
truth, the independence of a black republic, would prove dan- 
gerous to the perpetuity of American slavery. Is this slander? 
Let the members of Congress speak for themselves. The fol- 
lowing sentiments were elicited in the debate on the Panama 



Mr. Berrien of Georgia : — " Consistently with our own safety, can 
the people of the South permit the intercourse which would result 
from establishing relations of any sort with Hayti ? Is the eman- 
cipated slave, his hands yet reeking " (thirty-two years after slavery 
had been abolished by the French Government) " in the blood of his 
murdered master, to be admitted into their ports, to spread the doc- 
trines of insurrection, and to strengthen and invigorate them, by_ex- 
hibiting in his own person an example of successful revolt ? Gentle- 
men must be sensible, this cannot be. The great principle of self- 
preservation will be arrayed against it. I have been educated in senti- 
ments of habitual reverence for the Constitution of the United States : 
I have been taught to consider the union of these States as essential to 
their safety. The feeling is nowhere more universal or more strong 
than among the people of the South. But they have a stronger feeling : 
need I name it ? Is there any who hears and does not understand me V 
Let me implore gentlemen not to call that feeling into action by this 
disastrous policy." 

* Senate Documents, 1st Sess., 19 Cong., Vol. iii. 

f Letter of Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, 8th May, 1826. \ 



328 jay's works. 

In plain English, the slave-holders love slavery more than 
they do the Union ; and would sacrifice the last, rather than 
acknowledge as free, a people who had once been slaves. 

Mr. Benton of Missouri: — "The peace of eleven States in this 
Union will not permit the fruits of a successful negro insurrection to be 
exhibited among them ; it will not permit the fact to be seen and told, 
that for the murder of their masters and mistresses, they are to find 
friends among the white people of the United States." 

Mr. Hamilton of South Carolina: — "It is proper that on this 
occasion I should speak with candor and without reserve : that I should 
avow what I believe to be the sentiments of the southern people on this 
question ; and this is, that Haytien independence is not to be tolerated in 
any form. * * * * A people will not stop to discuss the nice 
metaphysics of a federative system, when havoc and destruction menace 
them in their doors." 

Mr. Hayne of South Carolina : — " With nothing connected with 
slavery can we consent to treat with other nations ; and least of all 
ought we to touch the question of the independence of Hayti in con- 
junction with the revolutionary governments whose own histoi-y affords 
an example scarcely less fatal to our repose. These governments have 
proclaimed principles of liberty and equality, and have marched to 
victory under the banner of universal emancipation. You find men 
of color at the head of their armies, in the Legislative halls, and in the 
Executive departments. * * * * Our policy with regard to 
Hayti is plain ; we never can acknowledge her independence. * * 

* * Let our Government direct all our Ministers in South Amer- 
ica and Mexico, to protest against the independence of Hayti." 

Gentlemen, when they talk in a passion, rarely talk wisely or 
consistently. Mr. Hayne insists that we cannot touch the ques- 
tion of the independence of Hayti in conjunction with the 
American revolutionary governments ; and yet in the next 
breath, he is for opening negotiations with all these governments 
on this very subject. Almost every slave-holder assures us that 
the slaves, if emancipated, could not take care of themselves ; 
and yet Mr. Hayne proclaims the important fact, that the 
armies of these same governments have " marched to victory," 
with colored men at their head ; and that colored men are found 
in their Legislative halls and Executive departments ! 

Mr. Johnson of Louisiana : — "It may be proper to express to the 
South American States the unalterable opinion entertained here in 
regard to the intercourse with them. The unadvised recognition of 
that island, (Hayti) and the public reception of their ministers, will 
nearly sever our diplomatic intercourse, and bring about a separation 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 329 

and alienation alike injurious to both. I deem it of the highest concern 
to the political connection of these countries, to remonstrate against a 
measure so justly offensive to us, and to make that remonstrance ef- 
fectual." Congressional Debates, Vol. II. 

Thus the gentleman from Louisiana looked upon the recogni- 
tion of Hayti by other and independent States, as a measure so 
offensive to us, as to afford us ground for quarrelling with them. 

We will now advance twelve years in our history, and see if 
the lapse of time has softened the hatred of our rulers of Hayti. 
On the 17th of December, 1838, a petition was presented to the 
House of Representatives, praying for the establishment of the 
usual international relations with that republic. No sooner was 
the purport of the petition announced, than vehement objections 
were made to it, and no less than thirty-two members had the 
hardihood to vote against even its reception. They were, how- 
ever, in the minority ; and on a motion being made to refer it 
to the Committee on Foreign Relations, the chairman of that com- 
mittee, himself a slave-holder, advocated the reference, as the 
best way of stifling the discussion, observing that "several sim- 
ilar memorials had been sent there the last session, which had 
never been reported on. This would take a similar course ; it 
mould never he heard of again." "With this intimation, the peti- 
tion was referred. A motion was then made to instruct the 
committee to report on the petition ; but, to stop the discussion, 
the previous question was moved, and the motion denied by a 
great majority. A few extracts from the speeches delivered on 
this occasion may be useful, as showing the temper and logic 
displayed by the southern members. 

Mr. Legare of South Carolina : — "It (the petition) originates in 
a design to revolutionize the South and convulse the Union, and ought 
therefore to be rejected with reprobation. As sure as you live, sir, if 
this course is permitted to go on, the sun of this Union will go down — 
it will go down in BLOOD — and go down to rise no more. I will 
vote unhesitatingly against nefarious designs like these. They are 
treason; yes, sir, I pronounce the authors of such things traitors — 
traitors not to their country only, but to the whole human race." 

Mr. Wise of Virginia: — "We are called to recognize the insur- 
rectionists who rose on their French masters. A large portion of those 
now in power in this black republic, are slaves who cut their masters' 
throats. Ghristophe himself was an insurrectionist and a revolutionist. 



330 jay's works. 

Their government has the stamp of such an origin. And will any 
gentleman tell me now, that slaves, aided by an English army, (and it 
is consolatory to think, when we are threatened by abolitionists with 
having our throats cut at the South, that these slaves in St. Domingo, 
though ten to one in number, never could have succeeded in insurrec- 
tion, but for the aid of the British army,) ought to be recognized by 
this Government, and that their being such is no argument against it ? 
No, it is the abolition spirit alone which would have us say to these 
men, whose hands are yet red with their masters' blood, — ' You shall 
be recognized as freemen ; we wish to establish international relations 
with you.' Never will I — never will my constituents be forced into 
this. This is the only body of men who have emancipated themselves 
by butchering their masters. They have long been free, I admit : yet, 
if they had been free for centuries, — if Time himself should confront 
me, and shake his hoary locks at my opposition, — I should say to him, 
I owe more to my constituents — to the quiet of my people — than I 
owe or can owe to mouldy prescriptions, however ancient." 

The consolation enjoyed by this gentleman, from the convic- 
tion that the Haytiehs are indebted to a British army for their 
liberty, is not a little ludicrous. There has never been but one 
British army in Hayti, and that was sent for the purpose, not 
of emancipation, but of conquest; and instead of aiding the 
blacks, it was joined by two thousand of the planters, who 
looked to it as the means by which they were to recover their 
authority over their former slaves. Yet this army, thus aided, 
found itself vanquished by the depised blacks ; and in May, 
1798, under Brigadier General Maitland, capitulated to Tous- 
saint, the black general. The history of St. Domingo affords 
much and valuable instruction to slave-holders, but certainly 
very little consolation. 

It may not be uninteresting to state a few facts relative to the 
present condition of a republic which so powerfully excites the 
apprehensions of southern gentlemen, and to the magnitude of 
the commerce which our northern politicians are willing to sac- 
rifice for southern votes, 

The advocates of slavery are fond of representing the Hay- 
tiens as a horde of barbarians. We therefore give the following 
evidence, published by the British Parliament, and taken before 
one of its committees. 

Evidence of Vice Admiral, the Hon. Charles Fleming, Memoer of 
Parliament ; — " He could not speak positively of the increase of the 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 331 

Haytien population since 1804, but believed it had trebled since that 
time.* They now feed themselves, and they export provisions, which 
neither the French nor the Spaniards had ever done before. He saw 
a sugar estate near Cape Haytien, General Boulon's, extremely well 
cultivated and in beautiful order. A new plantation was forming on 
the opposite side of the road. Their victuals were very superior to 
those in Jamaica, consisting chiefly of meat, cattle being very cheap. 
He saw no marks of destitution anywhere. The country seemed im- 
proving, and trade increasing. The estate he visited near the Cape 
was large ; it was calculated to make three hundred hogsheads of sugar. 
It was as beautifully laid out and as well managed as any estate he had 
seen in the West Indies. His official correspondence as Admiral with 
the Haytien Government, made him attribute much efficiency to it, 
and it bore strong marks of civilization. There was a better policy in 
Hayti than in the new South American States ; the communication 
was more rapid ; the roads were much better. One had been cut from 
Port-au-Prince to Cape Haytien that would do honor to any country. 
A regular port was established. The government is one quite worthy 
of a civilized people." 

"In 1831, the imports into France from Hayti exceeded in value 
the imports from Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic Towns, Holland, 
Austria, Portugal, the French West Indies, or China." McCulloch's 
Dictionary of Commerce, p. 637. 

In 1833, the imports from Hayti into the United States ex- 
ceeded in value our imports from Prussia, Sweden and Norway, 
Denmark and the Danish West Indies, Ireland and Scotland, 
Holland, Belgium, Dutch West Indies, British West Indies, 
Spain, Portugal, all Italy, Turkey and the Levant, or any one 
of the South American republics. And what protection is 
afforded to this commerce by the Federal Government — a gov- 
ernment willing to negotiate in every court of Europe for com- 
pensation for shipwrecked or fugitive negroes ? 

"Our trade with Hayti is embarrassed; it is subjected to severe 
discriminating duties. We are probably the least favored of any peo- 
ple in the ports of the republic. Tonnage duties and vexatious port 
charges discourage and oppress our commerce there. I am assured 
that, but for these impediments, the trade from this country with that 
would be greatly extended. The acknowledged cause of all the em- 
barrassments to that trade is founded in the fact, that our Government 
refuses to recognize the Government of Hayti. We stand aloof, as if 
they were a lawless tribe of savages. While all other powers have 
long since acknowledged them as an independent sovereignty, we 
refuse to recognize them. Others profit by their commerce at our 

* By the census of 1824, the population was stated at 935,000. It is tin- 
questionably upwards of a million at the present time. 



332 jay's works. 

expense. We have no representative at the island of any grade, nor 
have they a public officer accredited here. No commercial relation, 
therefore, exists between the two Governments." Speech of Mr. 
Grennell in the House of Representatives, December 18th, 1838. 

If the treatment which Hayti has received from the United 
States, evinces the hatred of our republic to emancipation, we 
have a proof no less strong of its attachment to slavery, in 



THE CONDUCT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TOWARDS 
TEXAS. 

In 1829, the Republic of Mexico having achieved her own 
independence, gave liberty to every slave within her limits. 
This State had a vast and fertile, but thinly peopled territory, 
adjacent to Louisiana. In this territory, within a few years 
past, a large number of adventurers from the United States had 
taken up their residence, with the consent, and under the juris- 
diction of Mexico. These adventurers sighed for the sweets of 
slavery, which they had enjoyed in their native land ; and as the 
soil was adapted to the cotton cultivation, they became restless 
under the requirement of the Government, either to till it them- 
selves, or honestly to pay those who tilled it for them. Hence they 
conceived the idea of transferring their allegiance from Mexico 
to another republic less tenacious of human rights. Nor was a 
large portion of that other republic less anxious to acquire a 
new market for slaves, and a new territory which would give to 
the slave-holding interest a preponderance in the national coun- 
cils. Judge Upshur, in 1829, remarked in the Virginia Conven- 
tion : " If Texas should be obtained, which he strongly desired, 
it would raise the price of slaves, and be a great advantage to 
the slave-holders in that State." Mr. Doddridge, another mem- 
ber, said, " The acquisition of Texas will greatly enhance the 
value of the property in question." Debates, p. 89. And in 
1832, Mr. Gholston declared in the Virginia Legislature, that 
" he believed the acquisition of Texas would raise the price of 
slaves fifty per cent, at least." Virginia, it will be recollected, 
is a breeding State, and therefore interested in the opening of a 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 333 

new market. The planting States have no wish to raise the 
price of slaves, but are deeply concerned for the perpetuity of 
the system. One of their distinguished politicians published a 
series of essays on the policy of annexing Texas to the United 
States : a territory which, he contended, was large enough to 
be divided into NINE SLAVE STATES, which would coun- 
terbalance the increasing number of free States at the North. 

The Federal Government, ever ready to promote the slave- 
holding interest, commenced a negotiation for the purchase of 
Texas, and offered four millions of dollars for the territory.* 
The offer was promptly rejected, and other means were re- 
sorted to. 

Texan land companies were formed at the North, for the sale 
of extensive tracts of land, said to have been obtained by grants 
from the Mexican Government. Capitalists, politicians, and 
demagogues participated in these splendid schemes of specula- 
tion, and became vociferous in the cause of Texan liberty. At 
the same time, crowds of emigrants repaired to the territory, 
many carrying their slaves with them. At last, these men, feel- 
ing themselves strong enough, raised the standard of rebellion 
in September, 1835, and on the 2d of the succeeding March, 
issued their declaration of independence. The Mexicans, of 
course, endeavored to quell the insurrection ; but, although nom- 
inally fighting with their own subjects, they were in fact con- 
tending against an invasion from the United States. The truth 
of this assertion will scarcely be questioned : yet it may be well 
to support it by a few facts. The following extracts from the 
journals of the day, will, it is presumed, be sufficient : 

"Who will go to Texas ? — Major J. W. Harvey of Lincolnton has 
been authorized by me, with the consent of Major-General Hunt, an 
agent in the western counties of North Carolina, to recede and enroll 
volunteer emigrants to Texas ; and will conduct such as may wish to 
emigrate to that Republic, about the 1st of October next, at the ex- 
pense of the Republic of Texas. 

J. P. Henderson, 

Brig. Gen. of the Texan Army." 
North Carolina Paper. 

* See instructions from Mr. Van Buren, Secretary of State, to Mr. Poin- 
sett, Minister to Mexico, August 25, 1829. 

29 



334 jay's works. 

" Three Hundred Men for Texas. — General Dunlap of Tennessee is 
about to proceed to Texas, with the above number of men. The 
whole corps are now at Memphis. Every man is completely armed, 
the corps having been originally raised for the Florida war. This 
force, we have no doubt, will be able to carry every thing before it." 
Vicksburg (Miss.) Register. 

" Since early last winter, a scries of transactions has passed before 
us in open day, the undisguised object of which has been to enlist 
troops, and procure arms to aid the Texans in their war with Mexico. 
Troops have been enlisted — arms have been obtained. Their military 
parades have been exhibited in our streets — they have embarked at 
our wharf — have proceeded to Texas — united themselves with her 
troops, and joined with them in war against Mexico. Is it not a fact 
that every stand of public arms deposited at this place by the State, 
has been sent to Texas, with the connivance of those who had charge 
of them ? " Cincinnati Gazette. 

Meetings were held in various places, and speeches made, and 
resolutions passed in favor of the Texan patriots. 

At a meeting in Cincinnati, of the friends of Texas, it was 
resolved : 

" That no law, either human or divine, except such as are formed 
by tyrants for their sole benefit, forbids our assisting the Texans ; and 
such law, if any exists, we do not as Americans choose to obey." 

The Federal Government, far from taking any efficient meas- 
ures to arrest this invasion of a friendly and neighboring State, 
sent an imposing force under Gen. Gaines, into the Mexican ter- 
ritory, under the pretence of protecting the frontiers ! — with 
what result is shown by the following article. 

" About the middle of last month, Gen. Gaines sent an officer of the 
United States army into Texas, to reclaim some deserters. He found 
them already enlisted in the Texan service to the number of two hun- 
dred. They still wore the uniform of our army, but refused of course 
to return. The commander of the Texan army was applied to, to en- 
force their return, but his only reply was, that the soldiers might go, 
but that he had no authority to send them back. This is a new view 
of our Texan relations." Pensacola Gazette. 

The adventurers in Texas had no sooner set up for them- 
selves, than they adopted a constitution, in which they aimed, 
first, to secure to themselves and their children for ever, the 
blessings of slavery ; and secondly, to acquire the aid and pro- 
tection of the United States. The first object was to be attained 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 335 

by a constitutional prohibition of both private and legislative 
emancipation ; and by making it a fundamental law of the Re- 
public, that no free black or mulatto person should reside within 
its boundaries ; and the second object, by giving to the United 
States in perpetuity, a monopoly of the slave-market in Texas, 
— the importation of slaves from any other country being abso- 
lutely prohibited, thus promising to realize the golden visions of 
the Virginia breeders.* 

A feverish impatience now pervaded the southern States for 
the acknowledgment of Texan independence ; — an impatience 
in which the northern speculators fully participated. Acknowl- 
edgment, it was seen, must precede annexation, since the latter 
could only be effected by a treaty with Texas as an independent 
power. Still policy required that this measure should be cau- 
tiously managed, lest the North should become alarmed at this 
scheme for vesting the whole political power of the Union in 
the hands of the slave-holders, and the northern members of 
Congress be found for once refractory. 

Congress met in December, 1836, and on the 22d of the same 
month, President Jackson sent them a special message in rela- 
tion to Texas. He remarked : 

" Prudence seems to dictate that we should still stand aloof, and 
maintain our present attitude, if not till Mexico, or one of the great 
foreign powers shall recognize the independence of the new Govern- 
ment, at least until the lapse of time, or the course of events shall have 
proved beyond all cavil or dispute the ability of that country to maintain 
their separate sovereignty, and to uphold the Government constituted by 
them." 

* To aid the deception intended to be practised on these breeders, the 
President of Texas issued his proclamation April 3, 1836, declaring that 
" "Whereas the African slave-trade is equally revolting to the best feelings of 
our nature and to the benign principles of the Christian religion ; is destruc- 
tive to national morals and to individual humanity : " therefore, all officers 
were commanded to be vigilant in suppressing the Africa?! slave-trade. This 
precious piece of hypocrisy was worthy of the new Republic. On the 1st of 
January, 1836, the British Commissioners at Havana informed their Gov- 
ernment, "within the last six weeks, considerable sums of money have been 
deposited by American citizens in certain mercantile houses, for the purpose 
of making additional purchases of negroes for Texas." Buxton, in his late 
work, says, " I have been informed on high authority that within the last 
twelve months, (1837-8,) 15,000 negroes were imported from Africa into Tex- 
as," p. 25. The sugar planters of Louisiana, as we have seen, are complain- 
ing that while they are compelled to import slaves from Virginia at $1000 a 
head, the Texan planters are importing them direct from Africa at half 
price. 



336 jay's works. 

This message dissipated all apprehensions on the part of the 
friends of freedom, of a speedy acknowledgment, and relieved 
Congress from the remonstrances and petitions with which their 
tables would otherwise have been loaded. 

It was obvious, however, that if we could contrive to become 
embroiled in a war with Mexico, we might then seize upon 
Texas, and hold it by right of conquest, without any violation 
of our neutral obligations : and that by this process, the annex- 
ation might be effected with even more facility than by a com- 
pact with Texas as an independent power. Accordingly, about 
two weeks after the late message, the President sent another to 
Congress on our grievances against Mexico — grievances about 
which the people at large knew and cared nothing. This mes- 
sage recommended the passage of a law authorizing the Presi- 
dent to employ a naval force against Mexico if she refused " to 
come to an amicable adjustment of the matters in controversy 
between us, upon another demand thereof, made from on board 
one of our vessels of war on the coast of Mexico" This propo- 
sition was coldly received, neither Congress nor the nation 
seeming to approve of such a novel and summary way of declar- 
ing war ; and no one having the slightest desire for war, except 
those Avho were anxious for the annexation. It being found 
that a war could not be had, another game was played. The 
session was to close on the 3d of March. The strongest oppo- 
sition to Texas was to be apprehended in the Lower House. 
Four days before the termination of the session, a motion was 
there made to add a clause to the appropriation bill, making 
provision for the salary of a diplomatic agent to Texas. There 
was no time for long speeches, and the motion was adopted with 
the amendment " to be sent by the President whenever he shall 
receive satisfactory evidence that Texas is an independent power, 
and shall see fit to open a diplomatic intercourse with her." 
The late message proved that the President had not yet received 
"the satisfactory evidence," and anticipated it only from the 
action of the great foreign powers, or " the lapse of time." Little 
hesitation, therefore, was felt "in leaving the subject under the 
control of the Executive. The House of Representatives, in 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 337 

which there was a majority of northern members, having been 
thus managed, and a salary secured for a Minister to Texas, 
the veil was thrown aside in the Senate, and two days before 
the end of the session, it was 

" Resolved, That the State of Texas having established and main- 
tained an independent government, capable of performing those duties, 
foreign and domestic, which appertain to independent governments, 
and ft appearing that there is no longer any reasonable prospect of the 
successful termination of the war by Mexico against said State, it is 
expedient and proper, and in conformity with the laws of nations and 
the precedents of this Government in like cases, that the independent 
political existence of said State be acknowledged by the Government 
of the United States." 

As the whole tenor of this resolution was in direct opposition 
to the message of the 2 2d of December, and as nothing had 
occurred since that date to weaken the positions assumed in the 
message, one of the senators in opposing the resolution, very 
naturally alluded to the views entertained by the President. On 
this, Mr. Walker, a senator from Mississippi, rose in his place 
and declared, that " he had it from the President's own lips, that 
if he were a senator, he woidd vote for this resolution .' ! " 

At eleven o'clock of the night of the 3d of March, an hour 
before his term of office expired, and just as the Senate was 
about adjourning, the President sent them the nomination of a 
Minister to Texas ! ! 

The conduct of the Federal Government towards Texas and 
Hayti, places in a strong light the influence of slavery on our 
national councils. The latter State has been independent both 
in name and in fact for thirty-seven years, yet we still refuse to 
recognize her. Twelve months after Texas declared her inde- 
pendence, she was received by us into the family of nations, and 
honored by an interchange of diplomatic agents. For thirty-five 
years, the soil of Hayti has not been trodden by an invader ; 
only ten months before the acknowledgment of Texas, a Mexican 
army was carrying terror and destruction through its territory. 
That army had indeed been defeated, but another was preparing 
to renew the contest. Hayti had long been at peace with all 
the world. Mexico claimed Texas as its own, and solemnly 
29* 



338 jay's works. 

avowed its determination to chastise and suppress the revolt. 
Hayti achieved her independence after a long and arduous strug- 
gle with powerful armies, and has a popvdation of a million to 
maintain it. Texas, when acknowledged, could appeal only to 
the fortunate result of a single battle as evidence of her national 
power, while she had no more than 60,000 inhabitants to con- 
tend against the eight millions of Mexico. "With Hayti, we had 
a large and valuable commerce, while our commerce with Texas 
was only in expectancy. Yet has slavery estranged our Gov- 
ernment from the one nation, and led it to welcome to its em- 
brace another, incomparably inferior in political strength and 
moral worth. 

The indecent haste with which Texas was acknowledged, and 
the trickery by which the acknowledgment was effected, were 
prompted by the desire of annexation. A southern journal 
speaks thus frankly on the subject : 

" Does any sober observer contend — can he in the face of facts, — 
that Texas has substantially, according to the usages of nations, accom- 
plished her independence ? Was there not an even chance, to put 
the matter on the most favorable footing, that the victory of Jacinto 
might this campaign be reversed ? But natural feeling ha§ outstripped 
the prudence of our Government, usually discreet and judicious, and 
social sympathy has done what political precedent, and possibly expe- 
diency, might not have sanctioned. The debate in the British Parlia- 
ment shows how well State papers and official ceremonies" (viz., the 
President's Message,) " may delude, or seem to delude foreign govern- 
ments. While Lord Palmerston and O'Connell were defending our 
Government from any improper haste in acknowledging the indepen- 
dence of Texas, the deed is consummated." The Port Gibson (Aliss.) 
Southerner. 

The whole slave region, with scarcely an exception, demanded 
a union with the new State. " The very reasons," said the 
Charleston Mercury, " so intemperately urged by the North 
against it, that it will increase the political weight of the south- 
ern States, and perpetuate and extend the curse of slavery, are 
our lest reasons for it." 

The Legislatures of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Ten- 
nessee, all passed resolutions in favor of the annexation. Many 
individuals at the North had likewise a deep pecuniary interest 
in the question. They had speculated largely in Texas lands, 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 339 

but their titles would be of but little value, so long as they 
depended on the faith of the lawless adventurers who possessed 
the country. Could that country be received into the Union, 
and subjected to the acts of Congress and the jurisdiction of the 
Supreme Court, their purchases might ensure to themselves or 
their families, princely estates. A writer in the Salem Gazette, 
(Mass.) probably a speculator, in vindicating the annexation, 
thus appealed to the avarice of New England : 

" It is calculated that the value of one kind of property in the South, 
slaves, will be enhanced so much, that that portion of our country will 
realize one or two hundred millions of dollars ; and the South cannot 
be enriched without benefiting the North — the money will naturally 
come here at last." 

The people of Texas were no less desirous of annexation 
than southern slave-holders, or northern speculators. The plan 
of union was avowed from almost the very commencement of 
the rebellion. In August, 1836, S. F. Austin, in an address 
offering himself as a candidate for the Presidency, told the 
people : — " I am in favor of the annexation, and will do all in 
my power to effect it with the least possible delay." TV. H. 
Jack, a candidate for the Legislature, declared : " I am decidedly 
and unecmivocally in favor of annexing Texas to the United 
States." Gen. Houston, the Commander-in-chief, intimated that 
"the annexation was essential to the interests of the new 
country." The Texan Congress resolved, " that the President 
of the Republic of Texas be empowered and authorized to 
despatch a commissioner or commissioners to the United States 
of America, to obtain a negotiation of our independence, and 
enter into a treaty with that Government for a union on a foot- 
ing with the, original States." The first condition prescribed for 
this proposed union, was, "the free and unmolested 

AUTHORITY OVER THEIR SLAVE POPULATION ! " 

On the 4th of August, 1837, the negotiation was opened by 
the Texan Minister at "Washington, by a proposition " to unite 
the two people under one and the same government." The 
acceptance of this proposition would of course have been ecpxiva- 
lent to a declaration of war against Mexico ; a responsibility 



840 jay's works. 

which Mr. Van Buren did not see fit to assume, especially in 
the recess of Congress. He declined entering into the negotia- 
tion, on the grounds that the United States were at present at 
peace with Mexico, and that that power had not acknowledged 
the independence of Texas. As this answer merely postponed 
the annexation on account of an obstacle easily removed, it was 
entirely satisfactory to the South ; and the more so as the 
President's message to Congress on the 4th of the ensuing 
December wore a very belligerent aspect towards Mexico. 

Tins formal attempt at annexation roused the fears of the 
North, and innumerable remonstrances against the measure 
were presented to Congress. In the meantime Mexico, by pro- 
posing a submission of her differences with the United States to 
arbitration, removed all pretence for immediate war. Under 
these circumstances, the southern delegation in Congress thought 
it most prudent not to press the annexation. The Texans, 
moreover, finding themselves unmolested by Mexico, who had 
become involved in war with France, and observing the strong 
hostility manifested towards the measure in the United States, 
formally withdrew her application for admission into the Union. 
It is folly, however, to suppose that the project of annexation 
is abandoned, either by the South or by Texas ; nor does it 
need the gift of prophecy to foresee that the first favorable 
opportunity of making war upon Mexico, will be readily em- 
braced by the Federal Government. Should such a war be 
effected, the dominion of the whip may perhaps be extended 
from Maryland to Panama. 

It may not be amiss here to compare the conduct of the 
Federal Government towards the Texan and the Canadian 
rebels. The first were slave-holders reestablishing slavery on a 
soil from whiclTit had been banished ; and they enjoyed from 
the first the sympathy of our government, who took care to 
interpose no real obstacle to an invasion on their behalf from 
the United States : while for the purpose of aiding them it 
labored to excite an immediate war with Mexico. The Canadian 
rebels were professedly fighting for liberty, and should they 
succeed, there was no probability that negro slavery would 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 341 

crown their triumph. They, like the Texans, looked to us for 
aid ; hut the President, now alive to the obligations of neu- 
trality, and finding the existing laws insufficient to enforce them, 
applied to Congress, and received additional powers. Troops 
were sent to the frontiers, not to swell by desertion the ranks of 
the rebels, but in good faith, forcibly to prevent American 
citizens from aiding the revolt. No attempt was ever made to 
punish any of the abettors of the Texan rebels ; but the 
judicial as well as the military power of the Government was 
exerted to enforce the duties of neutrality on the Canadian 
frontier; and indictments and trials and imprisonments have 
taught the impressive lesson, that American citizens may not 
with impunity make war upon a friendly nation, except for the 
purpose of trampling upon the rights of man. 

" While Mackenzie and Case are lying in a solitary dungeon, for 
attempting to liberate Canada, the Texan agent is openly enlisting 
men at Buffalo, to serve in an expedition against Mexico." Lewiston 
Telegraph. 

But hear the confession of the official journal of the adminis- 
tration : 

" There is no doubt, we believe, that vessels of war of light draught of 
water — brigs and schooners — are preparing in the United States, for 
Texas, to be commanded by young officers of the American Navy." 
Washington Globe- 
Yet not a finger has been raised to prevent these hostile and 
illegal armaments. The truth is, a war with Mexico is ardently 
desired by the slave-holders, and the President was for nego- 
tiating 011 board an armed vessel. A war with Great Britain, 
emphatically an anti-slavery nation, is now viewed with horror 
and dismay by the whole South,* and the Executive has sedu- 
lously endeavored to avoid it. 

We have now presented numerous instances of the action of 
the Federal Government in behalf of slavery ; but our task is 
not completed. We are still to view that Government, which, 

* A distinguished southern senator, speaking of the importance of preserv- 
ing our neutrality on the Canada frontier, declared that in his opinion "a 
war -with England would be the heaviest calamity that could befall the 
country." 



342 jay's works. 

in the language of the Constitution, was established " to secure 
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, " assail- 
ing the constitutional rights of the citizen, in order to rivet the 
fetters of the slave ; striving to extinguish the freedom of the 
press, the freedom of debate, and the right of petition, to per- 
petuate property in human flesh. These, we are sensible, are 
strong assertions : we solicit attention to the facts on which they 
are founded, and first to 



THE ATTEMPT OF TIIE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO ESTABLISH A 
CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. 

In the summer of 1835, the Anti-Slavery Society in New 
York, directed their publisher to forward a number of their 
periodical papers, containing facts and disquisitions on the 
subject of slavery, to various southern gentlemen of distinction, 
in the hope of exciting by this means, a spirit of inquiry among 
persons of influence and character. But it was precisely such a 
spirit of inquiry, that the advocates of perpetual bondage feared 
might be fatal to their favorite institution. Hence they affected 
to believe that the papers sent to the masters, were intended to 
excite the slaves to insurrection, and they succeeded in madden- 
ing the populace to fury. A mob broke into the Charleston 
Post Office, and seizing a quantity of anti-slavery papers, burned 
them in the street. This outrage was virtually approved by 
the City Council ; and at a public meeting, a committee of 
" gentlemen" was appointed to take charge of the northern 
mail on its arrival, accompany it to the Post Office, and see that 
no papers advocating the rights of man should be delivered to 
their owners. The Postmaster informed the head of the de- 
partment, that under existing circumstances, he had determined 
to suppress all anti-slavery publications, and asked for instruc- 
tions for the future. It should here be recollected, that of all the 
political advisers of the President, Mr Kendall, at this time 
acting as Postmaster- General, was the most odious to the oppo- 
site party. He had been appointed during the recess of the 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 343 

Senate, and it was regarded as a matter of course, that on the 
meeting of that body, in which the opposition had a majority, 
his nomination would be rejected. The Constitution forbade a 
censorship of the press, and had the people been disposed to 
delegate so formidable a power, they certainly would not have 
vested it in the 10,000 deputies of the Postmaster-General. 
The law moreover expressly required every postmaster to 
deliver the papers received by him to the persons to whom 
they were directed. 

Such were the circumstances under which Mr. Kendall 
returned his famous answer. After stating that not having seen 
the papers in question, he could not judge of their character, but 
had been informed that they were incendiary, inflammatory and 
insurrectionary, he added : 

"By no act or direction of mine, official or private, could I be in- 
duced to aid knowingly in giving circulation to papers of this description, 
directly or indirectly. We owe an obligation to the laws, but a higher 
one to the communities in which we live ; and if the former be per- 
verted to destroy the latter, it is patriotism to disregard them. Enter- 
taining these views, I cannot sanction and will not condemn the step 
you have taken." 

This letter taught the Senate that the new officer was willing 
to conduct the Post Office in a manner calculated to protect the 
" domestic institution " from the assaults of truth and argu- 
ment, and his nomination was confirmed. Mr. Kendall was at 
the date of his letter, a member of the Cabinet, and it was 
understood that the novel, extraordinary, and dangerous doc- 
trine of that letter received the sanction of the President. 

On the opening of Congress, President Jackson in his message 
recommended the " passing of such a law as will prohibit under 
severe penalties, the circulation in the southern States through 
the mails, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the 
slaves to insurrection." The proposed law, it seems, was not to 
prohibit the printing of certain papers, nor their committal to the 
mails in the northern States, but only their circulation in the 
slave-region. Of course certain persons, — postmasters, we 
presume, — were to be required, under "heavy penalties," to 
stop these papers ; and they were necessarily to be judges of 



344 jay's works. 

the character of the papers, and of the intentions of their writers. 
From what code of despotism did our very democratic President 
derive his plan for destroying the efficiency of the Press ? By 
a contemptible quibble, this plan was to evade the constitutional 
guaranty of the freedom of the press. It was not to interfere 
with the press — not at all — it was merely to prevent the cir- 
culation of its productions ! The press was still to be free to 
pour forth its arguments against slavery, only "heavy penal- 
ties " were to prevent the people from reading them ! The 
reason moreover assigned for this proposed high-handed act of 
tyranny, was a most malignant and wilful calumny. It was to 
prevent the circulation in the southern States of publications 
intended to excite the slaves to insurrection. Such a proposal 
from the first magistrate of the country to Congress, and follow- 
ing the affair at Charleston, and Mr. Kendall's letter, irresis- 
tibly fixes upon the members of the Anti-Slavery Society at 
New York, the charge of sending papers into the southern 
States for the purpose and with the desire of effecting the 
massacre of their fellow-citizens. If the President really be- 
lieved that such was the object of the New York abolitionists, 
and such the character of their publications, and if he thought 
it his official duty to bring the subject before Congress, he owed 
it to himself, to the country, to truth and to justice, to have sub- 
mitted to Congress the facts and documents on whi 2I1 he founded 
his proposed invasion of the constitutional rights of his fellow- 
citizens. But he cautiously avoided specifying a single fact, or 
quoting a single sentence in support of his tremendous accusation, 
or in justification of his most unwarrantable proposition ; and 
when written to by the acting committee of the New York 
Society for proof of his charge against them, he deemed it most 
prudent not to return an answer ! Surely the burden of proof 
rests upon him who, in a solemn official address to the Legisla- 
ture, holds up a portion of his fellow-citizens as miscreants 
engaged in plotting murder and insurrection, and urges the 
enaction of a law to counteract their execrable machinations. 

It is often difficult to prove a negative ; but in this instance, 
the falsehood of the President's charge is amply demonstrated 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 345 

by an official document from the slave-holders themselves. We 
give this document, not to exculpate the members of the New 
York Society from a calumny which their own characters abun- 
dantly refute, but to show in a strong light the unprincipled 
means to which the Federal Government is capable of resorting 
to uphold the " peculiar institution " of the South. 

A grand jury in Alabama conceived the bright idea, that the 
publication of tracts at the North against slavery might be 
arrested by indicting the publishers as felons, and then demand- 
ing them from the Governors of their respective States as 
fugitives from southern justice. It was necessary, however, to 
specify in the indictment, the precise crime of which they had 
been guilty ; a necessity which the President regarded as not 
applicable to his message. We may well suppose, therefore, 
that the grand jury would endeavor to secure the success of this, 
their first experiment, by selecting from the various publications 
alluded to by the President and Mr. Kendall, as sent to the 
South for the purpose of exciting insurrection, the most insur- 
rectionary, cut-throat passages, they could find. Behold the 
result. 

" £ tate of Alabama, j Ch . cuIt Court September Term, 1835. 
Tuscaloosa county. ) L 

The grand jurors, * * * * upon their oath present, that 
Robert G. Williams, late of said county, being a wicked, malicious, 
seditious, and ill-disposed person, and being greatly disaffected to the 
laws and government of said State, and feloniously, wickedly, mali- 
ciously, and seditiously contriving, devising, and intending to produce 
conspiracy, insurrection and rebellion among the slave population of 
said State, and to alienate and withdraw the affection, fidelity, and 
allegiance of said slaves from their masters and owners, on the tenth 
day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
and thirty-five, at the county aforesaid, feloniously, wickedly, mali- 
ciously, and seditiously did cause to be distributed, circulated and pub- 
fished", a seditious paper, called ' The Emancipator,' in which paper 
is published according to the tenor and effect following, that is to say : 
'God commands, and all nature cries out, that man should not be held 
as property. The system of making men property, has plunged 2,250,000 
of our fellow- countrymen into the deepest physical and moral degrada- 
tion, and they are every moment sinking deeper.' In open violation of 
the Act of the General Assembly in such case made and provided, to 

30 



346 jay's works. 

the evil and pernicious example of all others in like case offending, and 
against the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama." * 

In the Senate, the recommendation of the President was 
referred to a committee, who reported a bill prohibiting post- 
masters from delivering " any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or 
other printed paper, or pictorial repi'esentation, touching the sub- 
ject of slavery, in any State in which their circulation is prohib- 
ited by law." The object of this bill was, by means of federal 
legislation, to build around the slave States a rampart against 
the assaults of light and truth. Its absurdity was equalled only 
by its wickedness. Not a newspaper containing a debate in 
Congress, a report from a committee, a message from the Presi- 
dent, a letter from the "West Indies, " touching the subject of 
slavery," could be legally delivered from a southern post office ; 
and thousands of postmasters were to be employed in opening 
envelopes and poring over their contents, to catch a reference 
to the " domestic institution." 

By this bill, the Federal Government virtually surrendered 
to the States, the freedom of the press, and nullified the guaranty 
of this inestimable privilege, given by our fathers in the Consti- 
tution to every citizen. This bill, moreover, prepared the way for 
the destruction of civil and religious liberty. If every paper 
touching the subject of slavery might be suppressed, then the 
same fate might just as constitutionally be awarded to every pa- 
per touching the conduct of the administration, or the doctrine of 
the Trinity. It established a censorship of the press on one 
subject, which might afterwards be extended to others. Yet 
this bill, absurd and unconstitutional as it was, went through its 
regular stages with little opposition, till the important question 
was taken on its engrossment; — the vote stood eighteen to 
eighteen. The casting vote was now required from Mr. Van 
Buren, who, as Vice President, occupied the chair. He gave it 
for the slave-holders, and received from them, at the ensuing 

* Another count was added for distributing " The Emancipator," but with- 
out giving any extracts. It is scarcely necessary to add, that Williams had 
never been in Alabama. Yet on this indictment, he was demanded of the 
New York Executive as a fugitive felon, by the Governor of Alabama. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 347 

election, sixty-one electoral votes, by means of which he became 
President of the United States.* On the final question, the bill 
was rejected, and this attempt to trammel the press for the pro- 
tection of slavery, defeated. A very different result, however, . 
has attended 

THE EFFORT OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO NULLIFY THE 
RIGHT OF PETITION AND THE FREEDOM OF DEBATE. 

For thirty years past, petitions have been presented to Con- 
gress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, 
and the national territories ; and, until latterly, were received 
and treated like other petitions. But having within a few years 
prodigiously increased in number, and some northern members 
having shown a disposition to advocate their prayer, a most ex- 
traordinary course has been pursued in relation to them. The 
reason of this course is explained by tbe following passage from 
a speech by Mr. Strange, a senator from North Carolina. 

" Every agitation of this subject (slavery,) weakens the moral force 
in our favor, and breaks down the moral barriers which now serve to 
protect and secure us. We have everything to lose and nothing to gain 
by agitation and discussion." 

The frankness of this confession is as remarkable as its truth 
is unquestionable ; and it shows us why the advocates of slavery, 
instead of meeting their opponents in argument, have sought to 
silence them by brute force and penal enactments. 

One of the most unequivocal and undoubted of all constitu- 
tional rights is that of petition, and it is, moreover, expressly 
guaranteed by the Constitution. But this right has been most 
audaciously nullified by both branches of the national legisla- 
ture. The Senate have not, it is true, avowedly refused to 
receive anti-slavery petitions, but they have adopted a course 
which answers the same purpose. The practice for some years 
past has been to lay the question of reception on the table with- 

* The two senators from New York, Messrs. Wright and Tallmadge, polit- 
ical friends of Mr. Van Buren, supported the bill. It is due to justice to 
mention that the bill was finally lost by the votes of several southern 
senators. 



348 jay's wokks. 

out deciding it, and the question not being in fact received, can- 
not be discussed, nor any measure respecting it taken. This 
course is no less at variance with the constitutional rights of the 
petitioners, than it is with those of the members of the Senate. 
The rights of petition and freedom of debate are both nulli- 
ties, if the body to which a prayer is addressed, is prohibited 
from listening to it, and the individual members are prohibited 
from noticing it. "Would it be no violation of the Constitution 
were the Senate to order that every petition, " touching the sub- 
ject of slavery," should be delivered to their doorkeeper, to be 
committed by him to the flames ? And yet in what particular 
are the rights of the petitioners more respected by the practice 
we have mentioned ? The petitions are not indeed burned, but 
they are left in the pockets of those to whom they were entrusted ; 
and not being received, the Senate is supposed to be ignorant of 
their contents, and of course no member is permitted to discuss 
their merits, or to propose any measure founded upon them. 
Let us now turn to what is regarded as the popular branch, — 
the House of Representatives, — intended to be the special 
guardian of the liberties of the people, as the Senate is of the 
rights of the States. 

In May, 1836, a committee reported to the House a resolu- 
tion, prefaced with this extraordinary avowal : 

" Whereas it is extremely important and desirable, that the agita- 
tion on tliis subject (slavery) should be finally arrested for the purpose 
of restoring tranquillity to the public mind, your committee respectfully 
recommend the following resolution." 

Here then is an acknowledged, unblushing interference by the 
Federal Government, in behalf of slavery ; an avowed interfer- 
ence to arrest that agitation, which we are assured by Mr. 
Strange, " breaks down the moral barriers" which serve to pro- 
tect and secure a system of iniquitious cruelty and oppression. 
To arrest this agitation, the committee did not scruple to recom- 
mend a measure, breaking down the constitutional barriers 
erected to protect and secure the rights and liberties of the peo- 
ple of the United States. The resolution reported by the com- 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 349 

niittee, was adopted by the House on the 26th of May, 1836, 
and is in these words : 

"Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, and propositions relating in 
any way, or to any extent whatever to the subject of slavery, shall with- 
out being either printed or referred, be laid on the table, and that no 
farther action whatever shall be had thereon." Ayes 117 — Nays 68. 

It is worthy of remark, that of the ayes, no less than sixty- 
two were from the free States ! The advocates of this resolution, 
conscious that it could bear discussion as little as slavery itself, 
caused it to be adopted through the operation of the previous 
question, by a silent vote. 

We have exhibited the character of slavery and the slave- 
trade at the seat of the Federal Government, and have shown 
that Congress is the local legislature of the District of Columbia, 
having " exclusive jurisdiction over it in all cases whatever." 
Now one of the peculiar atrocities of this resolution is, that it 
wrests from every member of the House, his constitutional right 
to propose such measures for the government of the District as 
justice and humanity may require. Slaves might be burned 
alive in the streets of the Capital ; the slavers might be crowded 
to suffocation with human victims ; every conceivable cruelty 
might be practised, and no one member of the local legislature 
could be permitted to propose even a committee of inquiry, 
" relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to the subject 
of slavery." 

The fact that sixty-two northern members on this occasion 
arrayed themselves on the side of the slave-holders, affords a 
melancholy and alarming proof of the corrupting influence which 
slavery is exerting on the morality and patriotism of the free 
States. 

The foolish and wicked expedient to " restore tranquillity " to 
the people, by trampling on their rights and gagging their rep- 
resentatives, failed of success. The petitioners at this session 
were 34,000 — at the next the number was swelled to one hun- 
dred and ten thousand ! and the gag was renewed. During 
the session of 1837-8, the number rose to three hundred 
thousand. Early in the last mentioned session, a member 
30* 



350 jay's wokks. 

from Vermont presented a petition for the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia, and took the liberty to offer some 
remarks on the subject of slavery. This attempt to break down 
" the moral barriers," thew the southern members into great 
trepidation, and the scene which ensued illustrates the system 
of intimidation to which we have already adverted. The mem- 
ber was interrupted by a gentleman from Virginia, calling aloud, 
and asking his colleagues to retire with him from the hall ; — 
another from Georgia exclaimed, that he hoped the whole south- 
ern delegation would do the same ; — a third from South Carolina 
declared, that all the representatives from that State " had 
already signed an agreement." The House adjourned, and a 
southern member invited the gentlemen from the slave-holding 
States to meet immediately in an adjoining room. The meeting 
was held, but its proceedings were not made public. The result, 
however, was manifested in the introduction, next morning, of 
another gag resolution, directing all memorials, petitions and 
papers touching the abolition of slavery in the national territo- 
ries, and the American slave-trade, to be laid on the table, 
without being printed, read, debated, or referred, and that no 
farther action should be had thereon. Through the acquiescence 
of northern members, it was passed by a silent vote. 

At the beginning of the next session, a meeting of the admin- 
istration members was held, at which it was determined to renew 
the gag : and as a proof of the devotion of the Democratic 
party at the North to the cause of slavery, it was arranged that 
now, for the first time, the odious measure should be proposed 
by a northern man : nay, not merely a northern man, but a 
native of New England — a representative from New Hamp- 
shire. The resolution was accordingly introduced, and was 
passed on the 12th of December, 1838, and has given notoriety 
to the name of Atherton. 

Thus we see a persevering, systematic effort on the part of 
Congress to protect slavery by suppressing debate, and throw- 
ing contempt upon the petitions of hundreds of thousands of 
American citizens. That this should be done by slave-holders, 
was perhaps to be expected ; but that they should be aided in 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 351 

such a desperate assault upon constitutional liberty by northern 
men, for the paltry consideration of southern votes and southern 
trade, is mortifying and alarming. The meeting of extremes is 
a trite illustration of human inconsistency. If in Doctor John- 
son's time the loudest yelps for liberty were heard from the 
drivers of slaves, the loudest yelps in the northern States 
against aristocracy, chartered monopolies and oppression of the 
poor, are now heard from men who are laboring to perpetuate 
the bondage of millions, by gag laws and restrictions on the 
freedom of speech and the press. These men are acting from 
party views, and are rushing to battle under the war-cry of 
" Van Buren and Slavery," in hopes, through southern aux- 
iliaries, of enjoying the spoils of victory. Others again, with- 
out the slightest sympathy in the political principles of these 
men, and with their ears stuffed, and their heart padded with 
cotton, are cooperating with them in behalf of slavery, from 
their love of southern trade.* "We will here close our protracted 
investigation with a brief 

RECAPITULATION OP THE ACTION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERN- 
MENT IN BEHALF OF SLAVERY. 

This action we have found exhibited (omitting constitutional 
provisions), 

1. In its appointments to office. 

2. In its legislation for Florida. 

* The following are strong and amusing instances of the meeting of ex- 
tremes. In the spring of 1837, the Whig merchants of New York sent a 
deputation to "Washington, to request the President to adopt certain meas- 
ures to relieve the commercial embarrassments of the country. The request 
was declined, and a great meeting was convened to receive the report of the 
deputation. The report, which was adopted by the meeting, recommended 
efforts to displace Mr. Van Buren, and as one means of effecting this 
object, exhorted the merchants to " appeal to our brethren of the South for 
their generous cooperation ; and promise them that those who believe the 
possession of property of any kind " (not excepting men, women, and chil- 
dren,) " is an evidence of merit, will be the last to interfere with the rights 
of property of any kind ; discourage any effort to awaken an excitement, the 
bare idea of which should make every husband and father shudder with horror." 
In plain English, if the slave-holders would make common cause with the 
New York merchants against Mr. Van Buren, they in return would make 
common cause with the slave-holders against the abolitionists. But Dem- 
ocrats know the value of southern votes quite as well as the Whigs. Accord- 
ingly we find in the Washington Globe of February 9, 1839, a speech intended 
to have been delivered, but prevented by the gag resolution, by Mr. Eli 



352 jay's works. 

3. In its interference in behalf of the slave-holders in Louis- 
iana. 

4. In its efforts to degrade the free people of color. 

5. In its tolerance of slavery in territories under its exclusive 
jurisdiction. 

6. In its arbitrary, unconstitutional, and wicked laws for the 
arrest of fugitive slaves. 

7. In its negotiation with Great Britain and Mexico for the 
surrender of fugitive slaves. 

8. In its invasion of Florida, in pursuit of fugitive slaves. 

9. In its negotiations with Great Britain for compensation for 
slaves who had taken refuge on board British ships-of-war. 

10. In its negotiation with Great Britain for compensation 
for slaves shipwrecked in the West Indies. 

11. In its tolerance, protection, and regulation of the Ameri- 
can slave-trade. 

12. In its duplicity, with regard to the abolition of the African 
slave-trade. 

Moore, a double-refined Democrat, President of the New York Trades 
Union, and representative from that city in Congress. This gentleman tells 
us " the wild, enthusiastic, and impetuous spirit which kindled the fires of 
Smithfield, and strewed the plains of Palestine with the corses of the cru- 
saders, stands with lighted and uplifted torch hard by the side of aboli- 
tionism, ready to spread conflagration and death around the land ; " he 
declares that " so long as the Democratic or State Rights party shall main- 
tain the ascendency, the efforts of the abolitionists will be comparatively 
innoxious ; " and he announces what will be no less news to the New York 
merchants than it is to abolitionists, that " the Federal or National Bank 
Party believe the Federal Legislature not only have the power to abolish 
slavery in this District of Columbia, but also in the States." 

Almost immediately after the publication of this speech, the Democratic 
papers contained the following announcement : — " Just and merited. — The 
Hon. Eli Moore, of the City of New York, has been appointed surveyor of 
that port." The reward was paid by the President and Senate. 

But the most extraordinary instance of the devotion of northern Democ- 
racy to southern despotism, we have yet met with, was lately given in the 
City of New York. A set of men, calling themselves " delegates of the 
Democratic republican party (/.') for the several wards," assembled to make 
preparations for commemorating the declaration that " all men are born free 
and equal." They resolved to have an orator for the occasion ; but so ardent 
and sublimated was their love of liberty, that no northern Democrat was 
worthy, in their opinion, to declaim before them on the " self-evident truths," 
and the blessing of the Federal Union. So they selected for their Fourth of 
July orator, John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, who had evinced his 
attachment to the Union by his efforts to excite civil war — to the liberties 
of his country, by his gag resolutions, and his bill establishing a censorship 
of the press — and to the rights of man, by his avowed desire for the ever- 
lasting bondage of millions of his fellow-men. The presidential election is 
approaching, the vote of South Carolina is doubtful, and a compliment to 
Mr. Calhoun may not be useless to Mr. Van Buren. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 353 

13. In its present virtual toleration of the trade. 

14. In its appropriations to the Colonization Society. 

15. In its Indian treaties in behalf of slave-holders. 

1 6. In its attempted expulsion of the Seminoles for harboring 
fugitive slaves. 

17. In its efforts to prevent the abolition of slavery in Cuba. 

18. In its conduct towards Hayti. 

19. In its conduct towards Texas. 

20. In its attempt to establish a censorship of the press. 

21. In its invasion of the right of petition, and the freedom 
of debate. 

Such has been the action in behalf of human bondage, of a 
Government which, in the language of the Constitution, was 
formed to establish justice, and secure the blessings of liberty. 

And by whom are the men composing the Government, which 
thus perverts the objects of its institution, invested with their 
power ? They are the agents, the mere instruments of the peo- 
ple of the United States — of the North and the East, as well 
as of the "West and the South. This consideration calls us to 
consider 

THE RESPONSIBILITY OP THE FREE STATES. 

The advocates of slavery and the tools of party, are continu- 
ally telling us that "the North has nothing to do xoith slavery." 
A volume might be filled with facts, proving the fallacy of this 
assertion. There is scarcely a family among us that is not con- 
nected, by the ties of friendship, kindred, or pecuniary interest, 
with the land of slaves. That land is endeared to us by a 
thousand recollections — with that land we have continual com- 
mercial, political, religious, and social intercourse. There, in 
innumerable instances, are our personal friends, our brothers, 
our sons and our daughters. How malignant and foolish then is 
the falsehood, that the thousands and tens of thousands of abo- 
litionists among us, are anxious to see that land reeking in blood \ 
But the more intimate are our connections with that land, the 



354 jay's works. 

more exposed are we to be contaminated by its pollutions ; and 
tbe more imperatively are we bound to seek its real welfare. 

Let it then sink deep in our hearts — let it rest upon our con- 
sciences, that in every wicked and cruel act of the Federal Gov- 
ernment in behalf of slavery, the people of the North have 
participated, — we might almost say that for all this wickedness 
and cruelty, they are solely responsible ; since it could not have 
been perpetrated but with the consent of their representatives. 
Vast and fertile territories, which might now have been inhabited 
by a free and happy population, have by northern votes been 
converted, to use the langauge of the poet, into 

" A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves." 

By northern senators have our African slavers been protected 
from the search of British cruisers. By northern representa- 
tives is the American slave-trade protected, and the abominations 
enacted in the Capital of the Eepublic, sanctioned and perpet- 
uated : and northern men are the officiating ministers in the 
sacrifice of constitutional liberty on the altar of Moloch. But 
representatives are only the agents of their constituents, speaking 
their thoughts, and doing their will. The people of the 
North have done " this great wickedness." When they repent, 
when they love mercy, and seek after justice, their representa- 
tives will no longer rejoice to aid in transforming the image of 
God into a beast of burden — then will the human shambles be 
overthrown in the Capital — then will slavers, " freighted with 
despair," no longer depart from the port of Alexandria, nor 
chained coffles traverse the streets of Washington. Then will 
the powers of the Federal Government be exercised in protect- 
ing, not in annihilating the rights of man ; and then will the 
slave-holder, deprived of the countenance of the free States, as 
he is already of nearly all the rest of the civilized world, be led 
to reflect calmly on the character and tendency of the institution 
he now so dearly prizes, and seek his own welfare and that of 
his children in its voluntary and peaceful abolition. 

But here we are confronted with direful prophecies. Let us 
then proceed to inquire into 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 355 

THE PROBABLE INFLUENCE OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION 
ON THE PERMANENCY OF THE UNION. 

Before we can predict what this influence will be, we must 
first inquire, what will probably be the direction and aim of the 
agitation ? Every State possesses all the powers of independent 
sovereignty, except such as she has delegated to the Federal 
Government. All the powers not specified in the Constitution 
as delegated, are by that instrument reserved. Among the 
powers specified, that of abrogating the slave codes of the 
several States is not included ; on the contrary, the guaranty of 
the continuance of the African slave-trade for twenty years, the 
provision for the arrest of fugitive slaves, and the establish- 
ment of the federal ratio of representation, all refer to and 
acknowledge the existence of slavery under State authority. If, 
therefore, the abolitionists, unmindful of their solemn and re- 
peated disclaimers of all power in Congress to legislate for the 
abolition of slavery in the States, should, with unexampled per- 
fidy, attempt to bring about such legislation, and if Congress, 
regardless of their oaths, should ever be guilty of the consum- 
mate folly and wickedness of passing a law emancipating the 
slaves held under State authority, the Union would most unques- 
tionably be rent in twain. The South would indeed be craven 
could it submit to such profligate usurpation ; it would be com- 
pelled to withdraw, not for the preservation of slavery alone, 
but for the protection of all its rights ; and indeed the liberties 
of every State would be jeoparded under a government, which, 
spurning all constitutional restraints, should assume the omnipo- 
tence of the British Parliament. But it is scarcely worth while 
to anticipate the consequence of an act which can never be per- 
petrated so long as the people of the North retain an ordinary 
share of honesty and intelligence. 

"We have, under all the circumstances of the case, sufficient 
reasons for believing that the anti-slavery of the North will 
carry its action to the very limits of the Constitution, but not 
beyond them. In despite of the coalitions of parties and the 
intrigues of politicians, liberty of speech and of the press will 



35 G jay's works. 

be maintained, and the discussion of slavery will be extended 
by the very efforts made to arrest it. Let us suppose this dis- 
cussion to be attended with its natural and probable result, the 
conversion of the great mass of the northern people to the prin- 
ciples and avowed objects of the abolitionists. Of course, those 
principles and objects will be embraced by their representatives 
in Congress. In this case, we may expect that slavery will be 
abolished in the District of Columbia, and that it will be pro- 
hibited in the territories hereafter to be formed on the west of 
the Mississippi. Thus far the constitutional power of Congress 
cannot be rationally questioned. Independent of the exclusive 
jurisdiction over the territories granted to Congress, we have 
the precedent of the ordinance of 1787, prohibiting slavery in 
the Northwest Territory, and the more recent precedent of the 
prohibition of it in the Louisiana territory north of 3G^° of north 
latitude. The American slave-trade is now, and has been for 
upwards of thirty years, prohibited in vessels under forty tons' 
burden. It would not be easy to show that the Constitution 
forbids its prohibition in vessels over forty tons' burden. We 
may therefore take it for granted, that the Senate's coasting trade 
will be legally abolished. Should the land traffic not be also 
destroyed, it would not be for want of disposition, or constitu- 
tional power in Congress, but on account of the extreme diffi- 
culty which would exist in preventing evasions of the law. 

We have now the sum total of national legislation which, on 
our present supposition, will result from the anti-slavery action 
at the North. Yet we are positively assured that such legisla- 
tion would cause a dissolution of the Union. Now admitting 
the constitutional right and the moral obligation of our national 
legislators, to pass the laws in question, it would be difficult to 
decide by what code of morals they could be excused from the 
discharge of their duty by the apprehension of consequences. 
If God governs the world, more is to be feared from rebellion, 
than from obedience to his will. If his wisdom and goodness 
are both infinite, his will is and must be an infallible standard 
of expediency. If it be folly to barter a single soul for the 
whole world, would it be wise to expose a nation to the wrath of 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 857 

Heaven, for a boon which we now hold, and would continue to 
hold at the pleasure of men who are daily threatening to deprive 
us of it ? 

But we have no fears that Congress will ever find the faithful 
discharge of their duty conflicting with the welfare and preserva- 
tion of the Union. How far selfish and influential individuals 
may succeed in raising up at the South a party for secession, it is 
impossible to predict ; but it is not difficult to show that a separa- 
tion founded on the legislation we have specified, would be most 
preposterous and disastrous, and therefore we may reasonably 
presume it will not occur. 

Should the slave States secede, they would do so, we may 
suppose, for one or more of the following reasons, viz. : 

1. To protect their rights from invasion. 

2. To guard and perpetuate the institution of slavery. 

3. To increase their wealth and power. 

The North is the strongest portion of the confederacy ; and 
whenever, unmindful of the federal compact, it wickedly and 
forcibly usurps power to the prejudice of the South, secession 
is the only resource left to the latter for the protection of its 
rights. But a disregard to the teishes, does not necessarily imply 
a violation of the rights of the South. Not one of the measures 
we have contemplated as the probable result of the anti-slavery 
agitation, encroaches on the constitutional rights of the South; 
and therefore secession, however it might be professedly justified, 
would in fact be prompted by other motives than that of self- 
defence. But so long as the Federal Government confines its 
action against slavery within the limits of the Constitution, in 
what way would secession tend to guard and perpetuate the 
institution ? 

It is natural that the slave-holders should wish to destroy the 
influence of the abolitionists, and hence they have very unjusti- 
fiably expressed fears respecting them which they do not fee?, 
and circulated calumnies which they do not believe. The fol- 
lowing admissions reveal the true nature of the apprehensions 
entertained by the slave-holders. 
31 



358 jay's works. 

Mr. Calhoun, alluding in the Senate to opinions expressed 
by some or' his southern colleagues, exclaimed : 

" Do they expect the abolitionists will resort to arms, and commence 
a crusade to liberate our slaves by force ? Is this what they mean when 
they speak of the attempt to abolish slavery V If so, let me tell our 
friends of the South who differ from us, that the war which the aboli- 
tionists wage against us, is of a very different character, and far more 
effective — it is waged not against our lives, but our character." 

Mr. Duff Green, the editor of the United States Telegraph, 
and the great champion of slavery, thus expressed himself in 
his paper: 

14 We are of those who believe the South has nothing to fear from a 
servile war. We do not believe that the abolitionists intend, nor could 
they if they would, excite the slaves to insurrection. The danger of 
this is remote. We believe that we have most to fear from the organ- 
ized action upon the consciences and fears of the slave-holders them- 
selves; from the insinuation of their dangerous heresies into our 
schools, our pulpits, and our domestic circles. It is only by alarming 
the consciences of the weak and feeble, and diffusing among our people 
a morbid sensibility on the rpiestion of slavery, that the abolitionists 
can accomplish their object." * 

We would now respectfully submit to Mr. Calhoun's consider- 
ation, whether a secession would tend in any way to defend the 
characters of slave-holders from the war he contends is waged 
against them ; or fortify their consciences against the " danger- 
ous heresies" by which they are assailed. 

The new slave-nation would acquire from her separate inde- 
• pendence, no new power to darken the understandings, or 
benumb the consciences of her citizens. The freedom of the 
press throughout the whole slave-region, is already extin- 
guished.! Not one single newspaper, from Maryland to Florida, 

* The New York Whig merchants may learn from this candid avowal, that 
the "bare idea " of the abolition excitement does not make every " husband 
and father shudder with horror " at the South, whatever it may do in AVall 
street. 

t This assertion will not probably be denied, still it may not be amiss to 
adduce southern proof of its truth. The Missouri Argus, published at St 
Louis, speaking, in April, 1839, of an editor in Ohio, remarked : " Mr. Ham- 
mond deems the cooperation of the Eastern fanatics to be all-important to 
the success of Whiggery, and fears that the timid course of his brothel edi- 
tors on this subject may be productive of mischief. He should recollect, 
however, that the abolition editors in slave States will not dare to avow 
their opinions. It would be INSTANT DEATH to them." 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 359 

dares to raise its voice in favor of immediate emancipation ; 
and a southern publication, for expressing views unfavorable to 
slavery, notwithstanding its bitter denunciations of abolitionists, 
was lately taken from a post-office in Virginia, and in pursuance 
of the laws of the State, committed to the flames by order of the 
public authorities ; and when the laws are silent, Lynch clubs 
are ready to visit with infamous and cruel penalties the man 
who presumes to advocate the inalienable rights of man. What 
new ramparts could the southern confederacy build around their 
beloved institution? What new weapons could they forge 
against freedom of discussion? 

At the North, the discussion of slavery is now greatly 
restricted by political and mercenary considerations ; but such 
considerations would be dissipated in a moment by secession. 
The very demagogues who are now fawning upon the slave- 
holders for their votes, would, when they had no longer votes to 
bestow, seek popularity in ultra hatred to slavery. 

The anti-slavery agitation at the North is at present chiefly 
confined to the religious portion of the community ; it would 
then extend to all classes, and be embittered by national ani- 
mosity. Slavery would appear more odious and detestable than 
ever, after having destroyed the fair fabric of American Union, 
and severed the ties of kindred and of friendship, to rivet more 
firmly the fetters of the bondman. 

The slave-holders are now our fellow countrymen and 
citizens ; they would then be foreigners who had discarded our 
friendship and connection, that they might trample with more 
unrestrained violence upon the rights and liberties of their 
fellow-men. These considerations show that any expectation of 
extinguishing or weakening the anti-slavery feeling at the 
North by separation, must be utterly futile, 

A separation would, moreover, deprive the institution of the 
protection of the Federal Government. Should the slaves 
attempt to revolt, the masters would be left to struggle with 
them, unaided by the fleets and armies of the whole Republic. 

And by what power would the master recapture his fugitive 
who had crossed the boundary of the new empire ? Now he 



3 GO jay's wokks. 

may hunt him through the whole confederacy, nor is the 
trembling wretch secure of his liberty, till he beholds the Brit- 
ish standard waving above him. Then freedom would be the 
boon of every slave who could swim the Ohio, or reach the 
frontier line of the free republic. And this frontier line, be it 
remembered, would be continually advancing South. The anti- 
slavery feelings of the North, aggravated as they would be by 
the secession, would afford every possible facility to the fugitive, 
and laws would then be passed, not for the restoration of human 
property, but for the protection of human rights. 

Would the dissolution of the Union afford the southern 
planters a more unrestricted enjoyment of the foreign or 
domestic slave-trade ? Alas ! from the moment of separation, 
slave-trading becomes piracy in fact, as well as in name, and 
the crews of New Orleans and Alexandria, as well as of African 
slavers, would swing on northern gibbets. 

We confess then our utter inability to perceive in what 
possible mode a secession of the southern States would tend to 
guard and perpetuate the institution of slavery. 

Would a dissolution of the Union augment the power and 
wealth of the slave States ? The power and wealth of a nation 
depend on its population, industry and commerce. The increase 
of the white population at the South is now small, compared 
with the wonderful tide of life which is rolling over the western 
plains. And when the southern region shall be insulated from 
the sympathies of the whole civilized world, and consecrated to 
a stern and remorseless despotism, — a despotism sooner or later 
to be engulfed in blood, — by what attraction will it divert the 
tide of emigration from the fair prairies of the west, to its own 
sugar and cotton-fields? If, even now, armed patrols must 
traverse at night the streets and highways that the whites may 
sleep in safety, and military preparation is essential to domestic 
security,* what husband or father will take up his residence in 
the new empire, when withdrawn from the protection of the 

* " A state of military preparation must always be with us a state of per- 
fect domestic security. A profound peace, and consequent apathy, may ex- 
pose us to the danger of domestic insurrection." Message of Gov. Hat/tie to 
the Legislature of South Carolina, 1833. 



ACTION OP THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 361 

Federal Government and the friendship of its neighbors ? The 
slaves are now rapidly gaining on their masters, and will 
increase in a still greater ratio after the separation, since the 
prudent and the enterprising will abandon the doomed region, 
and few or none will enter it from without. Hence it is obvious 
that the white population of the southern States could gain no 
accession from their erection into a separate confederacy. 

Would secession augment the wealth of the South ? Be it 
remembered that there is now no one restriction on southern 
industry and enterprise which separation would remove. The 
slave-holders in Congress, with rare exceptions, have conducted 
the affairs of the nation to suit themselves. So far as the 
interests of the northern manufacturer were identified with the 
tariff, they have been sacrificed at the mandate of the cotton- 
grower ; and so far as national legislation can promote the 
wealth of the South, the statutes are already enacted. 

It will not be denied that the larger portion of the strength of 
the Union, — population, money, commerce, and shipping, — is to 
be found at the North. In all these elements of national power, 
the South participates equally with the North. The foreign 
invader is kept from her shores, and her property abroad is 
protected from spoliation at least as much by the power of the 
North as by her own. Her strength for all purposes of defence, 
is the strength of the Union. What would it be after secession? 
True it is, the South would receive Texas into her arms, but 
she would derive neither honor nor power from the loathsome 
embrace. Annexation now would insure to her the political 
dominion of the whole Republic, but after secession, would 
cause rather weakness than strength. 

As we can discover no possible advantage which the South 
could derive from secession, we are convinced that the threats of 
dissolving the Union, which her statesmen are so prodigal in 
scattering, are the ebullitions of passion, or the devices of policy, 
rather than the result of mature determination. This conviction 
is strengthened by still further considerations. 

Should the slave States withdraw without any aggression on 
their rights, but for the sole purpose of enjoying in greater pri- 
31* 



362 jay's works. 

vacy and tranquillity the sweets of slavery, they would leave the 
whole North in a state of high exasperation. The ligaments 
which have so long bound us together, cannot he ruthlessly and 
wantonly torn asunder, without causing deep and festering wounds, 
the consequences of which the imagination revolts from antici- 
pating. And in what light would the dark and gloomy despotism 
be viewed by the civilized world ? Mankind would behold, and 
wonder, and despise. The new State would be excluded from 
the companionship of nations. Her cotton would indeed be still 
purchased, as we buy the coffee of Hayti ; but with the least pos- 
sible intimacy. Already is our Minister at London treated with 
contumely, because he is a slave-holder ; as the representative 
only of the men who had shattered the American Republic to 
secure the permanency of human bondage, he would not be 
endured at any court in Europe, with the exception of Constan- 
tinople. In a few years, the slaves would attain a frightful 
numerical superiority over their masters. The dread of insur- 
rection within, and of aggression from without, would realize the 
prediction of holy writ, when men's hearts shall fail them for 
fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the 
earth. At length the fatal period would arrive, when, stung with 
insults and injuries, the new empire would appeal to arms ; and 
should a hostile army land upon its shores, the standard of eman- 
cipation would be reared, and slavery would expire in blood.* 

We well know with what indignant feelings these pages will 
at first be read by many ; and fortunate shall we deem ourselves 

* " March 29, 1779. The committee appointed to take into consideration 
the circumstances of the southern States, and the ways and means tor their 
safety and defence, report : That the State of South Carolina, as represented 
by the delegates of the said State, and by Mr. Huger, who has come hither 
at the request of the governor of said State, on purpose to explain the partic- 
ular circumstances thereof, is xmable to make any effectual efforts with militia, 
by reason of the great proportion of citizens necessary to remain at home toprerent 
insurrection among the negroes, and to prevent the desertion of them to the ene- 
my. That the state of the country and the great numbers of those people 
among them, expose the inhabitants to great danger from the endeavors of 
the enemy to excite them either to revolt or desert." Secret Journal of Con- 
gress. Vol. i, p. 105. 

Whether the South Carolinians are from their present "particular circum- 
stances," less in danger from a foreign invader than in 1779, may be seen 
from the following statement : In 1790 there were in that State 107,<>94 slaves 
and 140,178 whites ; in 1839, the colored population was 323,322, the white only 
257,863. 



ACTION OF TIIE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 363 

should we escape the imputation of writing to promote insurrec- 
tion and disunion. But Ave appeal from the decision of angry 
passion, to that of calm reflection. Do we not speak the words 
of truth and soberness ? Do not the signs of the times warrant 
our predictions ? In what respect do the sentiments we have 
uttered conflict with the lessons of history, or the character of 
human nature ? Do we love the union of the States? (!) If 
such a love can descend by inheritance, we should possess it ; if 
it can be founded on the most thorough conviction of the impor- 
tance of union not merely to the prosperity of our country, but 
to the happiness of numerous and beloved children and relatives, 
we should possess it. If the history of the States of Greece, 
of Italy, of Holland, of Germany, of South America, and of our 
own land, demonstrates the blessings of union and the calamities 
of separation, then should the prayer of every American ascend 
to Heaven for the perpetuity of the American Union. But let 
it be a union for the preservation, not the destruction of liberty : 
a union cemented by a sacred observance of the constitutional 
compact, not enforced by gag laws, a censorship of the press, 
and the abrogation of the right of petition ; a union in conform- 
ity with the will of God, not in contempt of his authority ; a union 
that shall be regarded as a common blessing, not held as a boon 
from the South, ever ready to be withdrawn as a penalty for the 
discharge of moral and political duties. 

May Almighty God in mei'cy preserve the friends of emanci- 
pation from the sin and folly of even hazarding the Union, by 
the slightest encroachment on the constitutional rights of the 
South, and may he give them grace to maintain their own rights 
in defiance of every menace. 



APPENDIX. 



Having mentioned the charge made hy President Jackson against the New 
York abolitionists, in his message to Congress, and alluded to the letter they 
addressed to him respecting it, we have thought it might be useful to insert 
here the letter itself, as showing more in detail one of the unwarrantable ex- 
pedients to which the Federal Government has resorted in behalf of slavery. 

" To the President of the United States: 

" Sir : — In your message to Congress of the 7th instant, are the following 
passages : ' I must also invite your attention to the painful excitement pro- 
duced in the South, by attempts to circulate through the mails, inflammatory 
appeals, addressed to the passions of the slaves, in prints and in various sorts 
of publications, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and produce all the 
horrors of a servile tear. There is, doubtless, no respectable portion of our 
countrymen who can be so far misled as to feel any other sentiment than that 
of indignant regret, at conduct so destructive of the harmony and peace of 
the country, and so repugnant to the principles of our national compact, and to 
the dictates of humanity and religion.' You remark, that it is fortunate that 
the people of the North have 'given so strong and impressive a tone to the 
sentiments entertained against the proceedings of the misguided persons 
who have engaged in these unconstitutional and icicked attempts.' And you 
proceed to suggest to Congress, 'the propriety of passing such a law as will 
prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the southern States, 
through the mails, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves 
to insurrection.' 

"A servile insurrection, as experience has shown, involves the slaughter 
of the whites, without respect to sex or age. Hence, sir, the purport of the 
information you have communicated to Congress and to the world, is, that 
there are American citizens who, in violation of the dictates of humanity and 
religion, have engaged in unconstitutional and wicked attempts to circulate, 
through the mails, inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the 
slaves, and which appeals, as is implied in the object of your proposed law, 
are intended to stimulate the slaves to indiscriminate massacre. Recent 
events irresistibly confine the application of your remarks to the officers and 
members of the American Anti-Slavery Society and its auxiliaries. 

" On the 28th of March, 1834, the Senate of the United States passed the 
following resolution: 

" ' Resolved, That the President, in relation to the public revenue, has as- 
sumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution 
and laws, but in derogation of both.' 



APPENDIX. 365 

" On the 5th of the ensuing month, you transmitted to that body your ' sol- 
emn protest' against their decision. Instructed by your example, we now, 
sir, in behalf of the Society of which we are the constituted organs, and in 
behalf of all who are associated with it, present to you this, our 'solemn pro- 
test,' against your grievous and unfounded accusations. 

" Should it be supposed that in thus addressing you we are wanting in the 
respect due to your exalted station, we offer, in our vindication, your own 
acknowledgment to the Senate : ' Subject only to the restraints of truth and 
justice, the free people of the United States have the undoubted right as 
individuals, or collectively, orally, or in writing, at such times and in such 
language and form as they may think proper, to discuss his (the President's) 
official conduct, and to express and promulgate their opinions concerning it.' 

"In the exercise of this 'undoubted right,' we protest against the judg- 
ment you have pronounced against the abolitionists. 

"First, because, in rendering that judgment officially, you assumed a pow- 
er not belonging to your office. 

"You complained that the resolution censuring your conduct, 'though 
adopted by the Senate in its legislative capacity, is, in its effects and in its 
characteristics, essentially judicial.' And thus, sir, although the charges of 
which we complain were made by you in your executive capacity, they are, 
equally with the resolution, essentially judicial. The Senate adjudged that 
your conduct was unconstitutional. You pass the same judgment on our 
efforts. Nay, sir, you go farther than the Senate. That body forbore to im- 
peach your motives — but you have assumed the prerogatives, not only of a 
court of law, but of conscience, and pronounce our efforts to be icicked as well 
as unconstitutional. 

"Secondly, we protest against the publicity you have given to your accusa- 
tions. 

"You felt it to be a grievance, that the charge against you was 'spread 
upon the Journal of the Senate, published to the nation and to the world, 
made part of our enduring archives, and incorporated in the history of the 
age. The punishment of removal from office, and future disqualification, 
does not follow the decision ; but the moral influence of a solemn declara- 
tion by a majority of the Senate, that the accused is guilty of the offence 
charged upon him, has been as effectually secured as if the like declaration 
had been made upon an impeachment expressed in the same terms.' 

"And is it nothing, sir, that we are officially charged by the President of 
the United States, with wicked and unconstitutional efforts, and with harbor- 
ing the most execrable intentions ? and this, too, in a document spread upon 
the Journals of both Houses of Congress, published to the nation and to the 
world, made part of our enduring archives, and incorporated in the history of 
the age ? It is true, that although you have given judgment against us, you 
cannot award execution. We arc not, indeed, subjected to the penalty of 
murder; but need we ask you, sir, what must be the moral influence of your 
declaration, that we have intended its perpetration ? 

"Thirdly, we protest against your condemnation of us unheard. 

" What, sir, was your complaint against the Senate? 'Without notice, 
unheard, and untried, I find myself charged, on the records of the Senate, 
.and in a form unknown in our country, with the high crime of violating the 
laws and Constitution of my country. No notice of the charge was given to 
the accused, and no opportunity afforded him to respond to the accusation — 
to meet his accusers face to face — to cross- examine the witnesses — to pro- 
cure counteracting testimony, or to be heard in his defence.' 

" Had you, sir, done to others as it thus seems you would that others should 
do to you, no occasion would have been given for this protest. You most 
truly assert, in relation to the conduct of the Senate, ' It is the policy of our 
benign system of jurisprudence, to secure in all criminal proceedings, and 
even in the most trivial litigations, a fair, unprejudiced, and impartial trial.' 
And by what authority, sir, do you except such of your fellow-citizens as 
are known as abolitionists from the benefit of this benign system? When 
has a fair, unprejudiced, and impartial trial been accorded to those who dare 
to maintain that all men are equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit 



366 jay's works. 

of happiness ? What was the trial, sir, which preceded the judgment you 
have rendered against them ? 

"Fourthly, we protest against the vagueness of your charges. 

" We cannot more forcibly describe the injustice you have done us than by 
adopting your own indignant remonstrance, against what you deemed similar 
injustice on the part of the Senate: 'Some of the first principles of natural 
right and enlightened jurisprudence, have been violated in the very form of 
the resolution. It carefully abstains from averring in which of the late pro- 
ceedings the President has assumed upon himself authority and power not 
conferred by the Constitution and laws. Why was not the certainty of the 
offence, the nature and cause of the accusation, set out in the manner required 
in the Constitution, before even the humblest individual, for the smallest 
crime, can be exposed to condemnation ? Such a specification was due to 
the accused, that he might direct his defence to the real points of attack. A 
more striking illustration of the soundness and necessity of the rules which 
forbid vague and indefinite generalities, and require a reasonable certainty in 
all judicial allegations, and a more glaring instance of the violation of these 
rules, have seldom been exhibited.' 

"It has been reserved for you, sir, to exhibit a still more striking illustra- 
tion of the importance of these rules, and a still more glaring instance of 
their violation. You have accused an indefinite number of your fellow-citi- 
zens, without designation of name or residence, of making unconstitutional 
and wicked efforts, and of harboring intentions which could be entertained 
only by the most depraved and abandoned of mankind ; and yet you carefully 
abstain from averring which article of the Constitution they have transgressed; 
you omit stating when, where, and by whom these wicked attempts were 
made ; you give no specification of the inflammatory appeals which you assert 
have been addressed to the passions of the slaves. You well know that the 
'moral influence' of your charges will affect thousands of your countrymen, 
many of them your political friends — some of them heretofore honored with 
your confidence — most, if not all of them, of irreproachable characters ; and 
yet, by the very vagueness of your charges, you incapacitate each one of this 
multitude from proving his innocence. 

"Fifthly, we protest against your charges because they are untrue. Surely, 
sir, the burden of proof rests upon you. If you possess evidence against us, 
we are, by your own showing, entitled to ' an opportunity to cross-examine 
witnesses, to procure counteracting testimony, and to be heard in \our~] de- 
fence.' You complained that you had been denied such an opportunity. It 
was not to have been expected, then, that you would make the conduct of 
the Senate the model of your own. Conscious of the wrong done to you, and 
protesting against it, you found yourself compelled to enter on your defence. 
You have placed us in similar circumstances, and we proceed to follow your 
example ; 

" The substance of your various allegations may be embodied in the charge, 
that ice have attempted to circulate, through the mails, appeals addressed to the 
passions of the slaves, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and with the 
intention of producing a servile war. 

"It is deserving of notice, that the attempt to circulate our papers is alone 
charged upon us. It is not pretended that M'e have put our appeals into the 
hands of a single slave, or that, in any instance, our endeavors to excite a 
servile war have been crowned with success. And in what way were our 
most execrable attempts made ? By secret agents, traversing the slave coun- 
try in disguise, stealing by night into the hut of the slave, and there reading 
to him our inflammatory appeals ? You, sir, answer this question by declar- 
ing that we attempted the mighty mischief by circulating our appeals 
'through the mails !' And are the southern slaves, sir, accustomed to re- 
ceive periodicals by mail ? Of the thousands of publications mailed from the 
Anti-Slavery office for the South, did you ever hear, sir, of one solitary paper- 
being addressed to a slave ? Would you know to whom they were directed, 
consult the southern newspapers, and you will find them complaining that 
they were sent to public officers, clergymen, and other influential citizens, 
Thus it seems we are incendiaries, who place the torch in the hands of hini 



APPENDIX. 367 

whose dwellings we would fire ! We are conspiring to excite a servile war, 
and announce our design to the masters, and commit to their care and dis- 
posal the very instruments by which we expect to'effect our purpose! It has 
been said that thirty or forty of our papers were received at the South, directed 
to free people of color. We cannot deny the assertion, because these papers 
may have been mailed by others for the sinister purpose of charging the act 
upon us. We are, however, ready to make our several affidavits, that not 
one paper, with our knowledge, or by our authority, has ever been sent to 
any such person in a slave State. The free people of color at the South can 
exert no influence in behalf of the enslaved; and we have no disposition to 
excite odium against them, by making them the recipients of our publications. 

" Your proposal that a law should be passed, punishing the circulation, 
through the mails, of papers intended to excite the slaves to insurrection, 
necessarily implies that such papers are now circulated ; and you expressly 
and positively assert, that we have attempted to circulate appeals addressed 
to the passions of the slaves, and calculated to produce all the horrors of a 
servile war. We trust, sir, your proposed law, so portentous to the freedom 
of the press, will- not be enacted, till you have furnished Congress with 
stronger evidence of its necessity than unsupported assertions. We hope 
you will lay before that body, for its information, the papers to which you 
refer. This is the more necessary, as the various public journals and meet- 
ings which have denounced us for entertaining insurrectionary and murder- 
ous designs, have in no instance been able to quote from our publications, a 
single exhortation to the slaves to break their fetters, or the expression of a 
solitary wish for a servile war. 

" How far our writings are ' calculated' to produce insurrection, is a ques- 
tion which will be variously decided according to the latitude in which it is 
discussed. When we recollect that the humble school-book, the tale of fic- 
tion, and the costly annual have been placed under the ban of southern edit- 
ors for trivial allusions to slavery — and that a southern divine has warned 
his fellow-citizens of the danger of permitting slaves to be present at the 
celebration of our national festival, where they might listen to the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and to eulogiums on liberty, — we have little hope 
that our disquisitions on human rights will be generally deemed safe and 
innocent, where those rights are habitually violated. Certain writings of 
one of your predecessors, President Jefferson, would undoubtedly be regard- 
ed, in some places, so insurrectionary as to expose to popular violence who- 
ever should presume to circulate them. 

" As therefore, sir, there is no common standard by which the criminality 
of opinions respecting slavery can be tested, we acknowledge the foresight 
which prompted you to recommend that the ' severe penalties ' of your pro- 
posed law should be awarded, not according to the character of the publica- 
tion, but the intention of the writer. Still, sir, we apprehend that no trivial 
difficulties will be experienced in the application of your law. The writer 
may be anonymous, or beyond the reach of prosecution, while the porter 
who deposits the papers in the post-office, and the mail-carrier who trans- 
ports them, having no evil intentions, cannot be visited with the ' severe 
penalties ; ' and thus will your law fail in securing to the South that entire 
exemption from all discussion on the subject of slavery, which it so vehe- 
mently desires. The success of the attempt already made to establish a 
censorship of the press, is not such as to invite farther encroachment on the 
rights of the people to publish their sentiments. 

" In your protest, you remarked to the Senate : • The whole Executive 
power being vested in the President, who is responsible for its exercise, it is 
a necessary consequence that he should have a right to employ agents of his 
own choice, to aid him in the performance of his duties, and to discharge them 
when he is no longer willing to be responsible for their acts. He isequally 
bound to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, whether they impose 
duties on the highest officer of State, or the lowest subordinates in any of the 
departments.' 

" It may not be uninteresting to you, sir, to be informed in what manner 
your ' Subordinate ' in New York, who, on your ' responsibility,' is exercising 



368 jay's works. 

the functions of censor of the American press, discharges the arduous duties 
of this untried, and until now, unheard-of office. We beg leave to assure 
you, that his task is executed with a simplicity of principle, and celerity 
of despatch, unknown to any censor of the press in France or Austria. Your 
subordinate decides upon the incendiary character of the publications com- 
mitted to the post-office, by a glance at the wrappers or bags in which they 
are contained. No packages sent to be mailed from our office, and directed 
to a slave State, can escape the vigilance of this inspector of canvas and 
brown paper. Even your own protest, sir, if in an anti-slavery envelope, 
would be arrested on its progress to the South, as ' inflammatory, incendiary, 
and insurrectionary in the highest degree.' 

" No veto, however, is as yet imposed on the circulation of publications 
from any printing-office but our own. Hence, when we desire to send ' ap- 
peals ' to the South, all that is necessary is, to insert them in some newspa- 
per that espouses our principles, pay for as many thousand copies as we 
think proper, and order them to be mailed according to our instructions. 

" Such, sir, is the worthless protection purchased for the South, by the 
most unblushing and dangerous usurpation of which any public officer has 
been guilty since the organization of our Federal Government. Were the 
Senate, in reference to your acknowledged responsibility for the conduct of 
your subordinates, to resolve ' that the President, in relation to the suppres- 
sion of certain papers in the New York Post Office, has assumed upon him- 
self authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and lav>s, but in 
derogation of both,' instead of protesting against the charge, you would be 
compelled to acknowledge its truth, and you would plead the necessity of the 
case in your vindication. The weight to be attached to such a plea, may be 
learned from the absurdity and inefficacy of the New York censorship. Be 
assured, sir, your proposed law to punish the intentions of an author, will, in 
its practical operations, prove equally impotent. 

"And now, sir, permit us respectfully to suggest to you the propriety of 
ascertaining the real designs of abolitionists, before your apprehensions of 
them lead you to sanction any more trifling with the liberty of the phess. 
You assume it as a fact, that abolitionists are miscreants, who are laboring 
to effect the massacre of their southern brethren. Are you aware of the 
extent of the reproach which such an assumption casts upon the character 
of your countrymen ? In August last, the number of Anti-Slavery Societies 
known to us was 263; we have now the names of more than 35) societies, 
and accessions are daily made to the multitude who embrace our principles. 
And can you think it possible, sir, that these citizens are deliberately plot- 
ting murder, and furnishing us with funds to send publications to the South 
' intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection r ' Is there any thing in 
the character and manners of the free States, to warrant the imputation on 
their citizens of such enormous wickedness ? Have vou ever heard, sir, of 
whole communities in these States subjecting obnoxious individuals to a 
mock trial, and then, in contempt of law, humanity, and religion, deliberate- 
ly murdering them ? You have seen, in the public journals, great rewards 
offered for the perpetration of horrible crimes. We appeal to your candor, 
and ask, were these rewards offered by abolitionists, or by men whose charges 
against abolitionists you have condescended to sanction and disseminate ? 

" And what, sir, is the character of those whom you have in your message 
held up to the execration of the civilized world ? Their enemies being judges, 
they are religious fanatics. And what are the haunts of these plotters of 
murder? The pulpit, the bench, the bar, the professor's chair, the hall of 
legislation, the meeting for prayer, the temple of the Most High. But 
strange and monstrous as is this conspiracy, still you believe in its existence, 
and call on Congress to counteract it. Be persuaded, sir, the moral sense 
of the community is abundantly sufficient to render this conspiracy utterly 
impotent the moment its machinations are exposed. Only PROVE the 
assertions and insinuations in your message, and you dissolve in an instant 
every Anti-Slavery Society in our land. Think not, sir, that we shall inter- 
pose any obstacle to an inquiry into our conduct. We invite, nay, sir, we 
entreat the appointment by Congress of a Committee of Investigation to 



APPENDIX. 369 

visit the Anti-Slavery office in New York. They shall be put in possession 
of copies of all the publications that have been issued from our press. Our 
whole correspondence shall be submitted to their inspection ; our accounts 
of receipts and expenditures shall be spread before them, and we ourselves 
will cheerfully answer under oath whatever interrogatories they may put to 
us relating to the charges you have advanced. 

" Should such a committee be denied, and should the law you propose, 
stigmatizing us as felons, be passed without inquiry into the truth of your 
accusation, and without allowing us a hearing, then shall we make the lan- 
guage of your protest our own, and declare that, ' If such proceedings shall 
be approved and sustained by an intelligent people, then will the great con- 
test with arbitrary power which had established in statutes, in bills of rights, 
in sacred charters, and in constitutions of government, the right of every 
citizen to a notice before trial, to a hearing before condemnation, and to an 
impartial tribunal for deciding on the charge, have been made in VAIN.' 

" Before we conclude, permit us, sir, to offer you the following assurances. 

" Our principles, our objects, and our measures, are wholly uncontami- 
nated by considerations of party policy. Whatever may be our respective 
opinions as citizens, of men and measures, as abolitionists we have expressed 
no political preferences, and are pursuing no party ends. From neither of 
the gentlemen nominated to succeed you, have we any thing to hope or fear ; 
and to neither of them do we intend, as abolitionists, to afford any aid or 
influence. This declaration will, it is hoped, satisfy the partisans of the 
rival candidates that it is not necessary for them to assail our rights by way 
of convinring the South that they do not possess our favor. 

" We have addressed you, sir, on this occasion, with republican plainness 
and Christian sincerity ; but with no desire to derogate from the respect that 
is due to you, or wantonly to give you pain. To repel your charges, and to 
disabuse the public, was a duty we owed to ourselves, to our children, and 
above all to the great and holy cause in which we are engaged. That cause 
we believe is approved by our Maker ; and while we retain this belief, it is 
our intention, trusting to His direction and protection, to persevere in our 
endeavors to impress upon the minds and hearts of our countrymen, the 
sinfulness of claiming property in human beings, and the duty and wisdom 
of immediately relinquishing it. 

" When convinced that our endeavors are wrong, we shall abandon them; 
but such conviction must be produced by other arguments than vituperation, 
popular yiolence, or penal enactments. 

ARTHUR TAPPAN, 
WILLIAM JAY, 
JOHN RANKIN, 
ABRAHAM L. COX, 
JOSHUA LEAVITT, 
SIMEON S. JOSELYN, 
LEWIS TAPPAN, 
THEODORE S. WRIGHT- 
SAMUEL E. CORNISH, 
ELIZUR WRIGHT, Jr. 

_ „„ .„„. Executive Committee." 

Neyt Youk, Dec. 26, 1835. 

32 



OX THE 



CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR 

IN THE UNITED STATES. 



It appears from the census of 1830, that there were then 
319,407 free colored persons in the United States. At the 
present time the number cannot be less than 360,000. Fifteen 
States of the Federal Union have each a smaller population 
than this aggregate. Hence if the whole mass of human beings 
inhabiting Connecticut, or New Jersey, or any other of these 
fifteen States, were subjected to the ignorance and degradation 
and persecution and terror we are about to describe as the lot 
of this much-injured people, the amount of suffering would still 
be numerically less than that inflicted by a professedly Christian 
and republican community upon the free negroes. Candor, how- 
ever, compels us to admit that, deplorable as is their condition, 
it is still not so wretched as colonizationists and slave-holders, 
for obvious reasons, are fond of representing it. It is not true 
that free negroes are " more vicious and miserable than slaves 
can be," * nor that " it would be as humane to throw slaves from 
the decks of the middle passage, as to set them free in this coun- 

*Rev. Mr. Bacon, of New Haven, 7 Rep., Am. Col. Soc., p. 99. 



372 jay's works. 

try,"* nor that " a sudden and universal emancipation without 
colonization, would be a greater curse to the slaves themselves, 
than the bondage in which they are held." 

It is a little singular, that in utter despite of these rash asser- 
tions slave-holders and colonizationists unite in assuring us, that 
the slaves are rendered discontented by witnessing ike freedom of 
their colored brethren ; and hence we are urged to assist in 
banishing to Africa these sable and dangerous mementoes of 
liberty. 

We all know that the wife and children of the free negro are 
not ordinarily sold in the market, that he himself does not toil 
under the lash, and that in certain parts of our country he is 
permitted to acquire some intelligence, and to enjoy some com- 
forts, utterly and universally denied to the slave. Still it is 
most unquestionable, that these people grievously suffer from a 
cruel and wicked prejudice — cruel in its consequences, Avicked 
in its voluntary adoption and its malignant character. 

Colonizationists have taken great pains to inculcate the opin- 
ion that prejudice against color is implanted in our nature by 
the Author of our being ; and whence they infer the futility of 
every effort to elevate the colored man in this country, and con- 
sequently the duty and benevolence of sending him to Africa, 
beyond the reach of our cruelty.f The theory is as false in fact 

♦African Repository, Vol. IV, p. 226. 

f " Prejudices, which neither refinement, nor argument, nor education, 
nor religion itself can subdue, mark the people of color, whether bond or 
free, as the subjects of a degradation inevitable and incurable." Address of 
the Connecticut Col. Society. " The managers consider it clear that causes 
exist, and are now operating, to prevent their improvement and elevation to 
any considerable extent as a class in this country, which are fixed, not only 
beyond the control of the friends of humanity, but of any human power: 
Christianity cannot do for them here, what it will do for them in Africa. 
This is not the fault of the colored man, nor of the white man, but an ordi- 
nation of Providence, and no more to be changed than the laws of nature." 
15th Rep., Am. Col. Soc., p. 47. 

" The people of color must, in this country, remain for ages, probably for 
ever, a separate and distinct caste, weighed down by causes powerful, uni- 
versal, invincible, which neither legislation nor Christianity can remove." 
African Repository, Vol. VIII, p. 196. 

"Do they (the abolitionists) not perceive that in thus confounding all the 
distinctions which God himself has made, they arraign the wisdom and good- 
ness of Providence itself ? It has been his divine pleasure, to make the black 
man black, and the white man white, and to distinguish them by other 
repulsive constitutional differences." Speech in Senate of the United States, 
February 7, 1839, by Henry Clay, President of the Am. Col. Soc. 



CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 373 

as it is derogatory to the character of that God whom we are 
told is love. With what astonishment and disgust should we 
behold an earthly parent exciting feuds and animosities among 
his own children ; yet we are assured, and that too by professing 
Christians, that our heavenly Father has implanted a principle 
of hatred, repulsion and alienation between certain portions of 
his family on earth, and then commanded them, as if in mockery, 
to " love one another." 

In vain do we seek in nature for the origin of this prejudice. 
Young children never betray it, and on the continent of Europe 
it is unknown. We are not speaking of matters of taste, or of 
opinions of personal beauty, but of a prejudice against com- 
plexion, leading to insult, degradation and oppression. In no 
country in Europe is any man excluded from refined society, or 
deprived of literary, religious, or political privileges on account 
of the tincture of his skin. If this prejudice is the fiat of the 
Almighty, most wonderful is it, that of all the kindreds of the 
earth, none have been found submissive to the heavenly impulse, 
excepting the white inhabitants of North America ; and of these, 
it is no less strange than true, that this divine principle of repul- 
sion is most energetic in such persons as, in other respects, are 
the least observant of their Maker's will. This prejudice is 
sometimes erroneously regarded as the cause of slavery ; and 
some zealous advocates of emancipation have flattered themselves 
that, could the prejudice be destroyed, negro slavery would fall 
with it. Such persons have very inadequate ideas of the malig- 
nity of slavery. They forget that the slaves in Greece and Rome 
were of the same hue as their masters ; and that at the South, 
the value of a slave, especially of a female, rises, as the com- 
plexion recedes from the African standard. 

Were we to inquire into the geography of this prejudice, we 
should find that the localities in which it attains its rankest 
luxuriance, are not the rice-swamps of Georgia, nor the sugar- 
fields of Louisiana, but the hills and valleys of New England, 
and the prairies of Ohio ! It is a fact of acknowledged notoriety, 
that however severe may be the laws against the colored people 
at the South, the prejudice against their persons is far weaker 

than among ourselves. 
32* 



374 jay's works. 

It is not necessary, for our present purpose, to enter into a 
particular investigation of the condition of the free negroes in 
the slave States. We all know that they suffer every form of 
oppression which the laws can inflict upon persons not actually 
slaves. That unjust and cruel enactments should proceed from 
a people who keep two millions of their fellow-men in abject 
bondage, and who believe such enactments essential to the main- 
tenance of their despotism, certainly affords no cause for sur- 
prise. 

We turn to the free States, where slavery has not directly 
steeled our hearts against human suffering, and where no sup- 
posed danger of insurrection affords a pretext for keeping the 
free blacks in ignorance and degradation ; and we ask, What is 
the character of the prejudice against color here ? Let the Rev. 
Mr. Bacon, of Connecticut, answer the question. This gentle- 
man, in a vindication of the Colonization Society, assures us, 
" The Soodra is not farther separated from the Brahim in regard 
to all his privileges, civil, intellectual, and moral, than the negro 
from the white man by the prejudices which result from the dif- 
ference made between them by the C4od of nature." Rep. Am. 
Col. Soc, p. 87. 

We may here notice the very opposite effect produced on 
abolitionists and colonizationists, by the consideration that this 
difference is made by the God of nature ; leading the one to 
discard the prejudice, and the other to banish its victims. 

With these preliminary remarks we will now proceed to take 
a view of the condition of the free people of color in the non- 
slave-holding States ; and will consider in order, the various 
disabilities and oppressions to which they are subjected, either 
by law or the customs of society. 

1. GENERAL EXCLUSION FROM THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE. 

Were this exclusion founded on the want of property, or any 
other qualification deemed essential to the judicious exercise of 
the franchise, it would afford no just cause of complaint ; but it 
is founded solely on the color of the skin, and is therefore irra- 



CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 375 

tional and unjust. That taxation and representation should be 
inseparable, was one of the axioms of the fathers of our Revo- 
lution, and one of the reasons they assigned for their revolt 
from the crown of Britain. But now, it is deemed a mark of 
fanaticism to complain of the disfranchisement of a whole race, 
while they remain subject to the burden of taxation. It is 
worthy of remark, that of the thirteen original States, only two 
were so recreant to the principles of the Revolution, as to make 
a white skin a qualification for suffrage. But the prejudice has 
grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength ; and 
it is believed that in every State constitution subsequently formed 
or revised, (excepting Vermont and Maine, and the revised 
constitution of Massachusetts,) the crime of a dark complexion 
has been punished, by debarring its possessor from all approach 
to the ballot-box.* The necessary effect of this proscription in 
aggravating the oppression and degradation of the colored inhab- 
itants, must be obvious to all who call to mind the solicitude 
manifested by demagogues, and office-seekers, and law-makers, 
to propitiate the good will of all who have votes to bestow. 

2. DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF LOCOMOTION. 

It is in vain that the Constitution of the United States express- 
ly guarantees to " the citizens of each State, all the privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the several States:" — It is in vain 
that the Supreme Court of the United States has solemnly 
decided that this clause confers on every citizen of one State the 
right to " pass through, or reside in any other State for the pur- 
poses of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherivise.'' 
It is in vain that " the members of the several State Legislatures " 
are required to " be bound by oath or affirmation to support " 
the Constitution conferring this very guaranty. Constitutions 
and judicial decisions and religious obligations are alike outraged 
by our State enactments against people of color. There is 

* " From this remark the revised constitution of New York is nominally an 
exception, colored citizens, possessing a freehold worth two hundred and 
fifty dollars, being allowed to vote ; while suffrage is extended to white citi- 
zens without any property qualification. 



376 jay's works. 

scarcely a slave State in which a citizen of New York, with a 
dark skin, may visit a dying child without subjecting himself to 
legal penalties. But in the slave States we look for cruelty ; we 
expect the rights of humanity and the laws of the land to be 
sacrificed on the altar of slavery. In the free States, we had 
reason to hope for a greater deference to decency and morality. 
Yet even in these States we behold the effects of a miasma 
wafted from the South. The Connecticut Black Act, prohibit- 
ing, under heavy penalties, the instruction of any colored person 
from another State, is well known. It is one of the encouraging 
signs of the times, that public opinion has recently compelled 
the repeal of this detestable law. But among all the free States, 
Ohio stands preeminent for the wickedness of her statutes 
against this class of our population. These statutes are not 
merely infamous outrages on every principle of justice and 
humanity, but are gross and palpable violations of the State 
constitution, and manifest an absence of moral sentiment in the 
Ohio Legislature, as deplorable as it is alarming. We speak 
the language, not of passion, but of sober conviction ; and for 
the truth of this language we appeal, first, to the statutes them- 
selves, and then to the consciences of our readers. We shall 
have occasion to notice these laws under the several divisions of 
our subject to which they belong ; at present we ask attention 
to the one intended to prevent the colored citizens of other 
States from removing into Ohio. By the constitution of New 
York, the colored inhabitants are expressly recognized as " citi- 
zens." Let us suppose, then, a New York freeholder and voter 
of this class, confiding in the guaranty given by the Federal 
constitution, removes into Ohio. No matter how much property 
he takes with him ; no matter what attestations he produces to 
the purity of his character, he is required by the Act of 1807, 
to find, within twenty days, two freehold sureties in the sum of 
five hundred dollars for his good behavior ; and likewise for his 
maintenance, should he at any future period, from any cause 
whatever, be unable to maintain himself, and in default of pro- 
curing such sureties, he is to be removed by the overseers of the 
poor The Legislature well knew that it would generally be 






CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR, 377 

utterly impossible for a stranger, and especially a black, stranger, 
to find such sureties. It was the design of the Act, by imposing 
impracticable conditions, to prevent colored emigrants from re- 
maining within the State ; and in order more certainly to effect 
this object, it imposes a pecuniary penalty on every inhabitant 
who shall venture to " harbor," that is, receive under his roof, 
or who shall even " employ " an emigrant who has not given 
the required sureties ; and it moreover renders such inhabitant 
so harboring or employing him legally liable for his future 
maintenance ! 

We are frequently told that the efforts of the abolitionists have 
in fact aggravated the condition of the colored people, bond and 
free. The date of this law, as well as the date of most of the 
laws composing the several slave'-codes, shows what credit is to 
be given to the assertion. If a barbarous enactment is recent, 
its odium is thrown upon the friends of the blacks ; if ancient, 
we are assured that it is obsolete. The Ohio law was enacted 
only four years after the State was admitted into the Union. 
In 1800 there were only three hundred and thirty-seven free 
blacks in the territory, and in 1830, the number in the State 
was nine thousand five hundred. Of course a very large pro- 
portion of the present colored population of the State must have 
entered it in ignorance of this iniquitous law, or in defiance of it. 
That the law has not been universally enforced, proves only that 
the people of Ohio are less profligate than their legislators ; that 
it has remained on the statute book for thirty-two years, proves 
the depraved state of public opinion and the horrible persecution 
to which the colored people are legally exposed. But let it not 
be supposed that this vile law is in fact obselete, and its very 
existence forgotten. 

In 1829, a very general effort was made to enforce this law, 
and about one thousand free blacks were in consequence of it 
driven out of the State, and sought a refuge in the more free and 
Christian country of Canada. Previous to their departure, they 
sent a deputation to the Governor of the Upper Province, to 
know if they would be admitted, and received from Sir James 
Colebrook this reply: — "Tell the republicans on your side of 



378 jay's works. 

the line, that we royalists do not know men by their color. 
Should you come to us, you will be entitled to all the privileges 
of the rest of his majesty's subjects." This was the origin of 
the Wilberforce colony in Upper Canada. 

We have now before us an Ohio paper containing a proclama- 
tion by John S. Wiles, overseer of the poor in the town of Fair- 
field, dated 12th March, 1838. In this instrument notice is 
given to all " black or mulatto persons " residing in Fairfield, to 
comply with the requisitions of the Act of 1807 within twenty 
days, or the law would be enforced against them. The procla- 
mation also addresses the white inhabitants of Fairfield in the 
following terms : " Whites, look out ! If any person or persons 
employing any black or mulatto person, contrary to the third 
section of the above law, you may look out for the breakers." 
The extreme vulgarity and malignity of this notice indicates the 
spirit which gave birth to this detestable law, and continues it in 
being. 

Now what says the constitution of Ohio ? " All are born free 
and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, inalienable 
rights ; among which are the enjoying, and defending life and 
liberty, acquiring, ]X>ssessing and protecting property, and pur- 
suing and attaining happiness and safety." Yet men who had 
called their Maker to witness that they would obey this very 
constitution, require impracticable conditions, and then impose 
a pecuniary penalty and grievous liabilities on every man who 
shall give to an innocent fellow-countryman a night's lodging, 
or even a meal of victuals in exchange for his honest labor ! 

3. DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 

We explicitly disclaim all intention to imply that the several 
disabilities and cruelties we are specifying are of universal 
application. The laws of some States in relation to people of 
color are more wicked than others ; and the spirit of persecution 
is not in every place equally active and malignant. In none of 
the free States have these people so many grievances to com- 
plain of as in Ohio, and for the honor of our country we rejoice 



CONDITION OF TIIE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 379 

to add, that in no other State in the Union has their right to 
petition for a redress of their grievances been denied. 

On the 1 4th of January, 1839, a petition for relief from certain 
legal disabilities, from colored inhabitants of Ohio, was presented 
to the popular branch of the Legislature, and its rejection was 
moved by George H. Flood.* This rejection was not a denial 
of the prayer, but an expulsion of the petition itself, as an 
intruder into the House. "The question presented for our 
decision," said one of the members, "is simply this — Shall 
human beings, who are bound by every enactment upon our 
statute book, be permitted to request the Legislature to modify 
or soften the laws under which they live ? " To the Grand 
Sultan, crowded with petitions as he traverses the streets of 
Constantinople, such a question would seem most strange ; but 
American Democrats can exert a tyranny over men who have no 
votes, utterly unknown to Turkish despotism. Mr. Flood's 
motion was lost by a majority of only four votes ; but this tri- 
umph of humanity and republicanism was as transient as it was 
meagre. The next day, the House, by a large majority, resolved 

" That the blacks and mulattoes who may be residents within this 
State, have no constitutional right to present their petitions to the 
General Assembly for any purpose whatsoever, and that any reception 
of such petitions on the part of the General Assembly is a mere act of 
privilege or policy, and not imposed by any expressed or implied 
power of the Constitution." 

The phraseology of this resolution is as clumsy as its assertions 
are base and sophistical. The meaning intended to be expressed 
is simply, that the constitution of Ohio, neither in terms nor by 
implication, confers on such residents as are negroes or mulattoes, 
any right to offer a petition to the Legislature for any object 
whatever; nor imposes on that body any obligation to notice 
such a petition ; and whatever attention it may please to bestow 
upon it, ought to be regarded as an act not of duty, but merely 
of favor or expediency. Hence it is obvious, that the principle 
on which the resolution is founded is, that the reciprocal right 
and duty of offering and hearing petitions rests solely on consti- 

* It is sometimes interesting to preserve the names of individuals who 
have perpetrated bold and unusual enormities. 



380 jay's works, 

iutional enactment, and not on moral obligation. The reception 
of negro petitions is declared to be. a mere act of privilege or 
policy. Now it is difficult to imagine a principle more utterly 
subversive of all the duties of rulers, the rights of citizens, and 
the charities of private life. The victim of oppression or fraud 
has no right to appeal to the constituted authorities for redress, 
nor are those authorities under any obligation to consider the 
appeal ; the needy and unfortunate have no right to implore 
the assistance of their more fortunate neighbors ; and all are at 
liberty to turn a deaf ear to the cry of distress. The eternal 
and immutable principles of justice and humanity, proclaimed 
by Jehovah, and impressed by him on the conscience of man, 
have no binding force on the Legislature of Ohio, unless ex- 
pressly adopted and enforced by the State constitution ! 

But as the Legislature has thought proper thus to set at 
defiance the moral sense of mankind, and to take refuge behind 
the enactments of the constitution, let us try the strength of 
their entrenchments. The words of the constitution, which it is 
pretended sanction the resolution we are considering, are the 
following, viz. : — " The. people have a right to assemble together 
in a peaceable manner to consult for their common good, to 
instruct their representatives, and to apply to the Legislature for 
a redress of grievances." It is obvious that this clause confers 
no rights, but is merely declaratory of existing rights. Still, as 
the right of the people to apply for a redress of grievances is 
coupled with the right of instructing their representatives, and as 
negroes are not electors, and consequently are without represen- 
tatives, it is inferred that they are not part of the people. That 
Ohio legislators are not Christians would be a more rational 
conclusion. One of the members avowed his opinion that " none 
but voters had a right to petition." If, then, according to the 
principle of the resolution, the constitution of Ohio denies the 
right of petition to all but electors, let us consider the practical 
results of such a denial. In the first place, every female in the 
State is placed under the same disability with " blacks and mu- 
lattoes. No wife has a right to ask for a divorce — no daughter 
may plead for a father's life. Next, no man under twenty-one 



CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 381 

years — no citizen of any age, who from want of sufficient resi- 
dence, or other qualification, is not entitled to vote — no individ- 
ual among the tens of thousands of aliens in the State, however 
oppressed and wronged by official tyranny or corruption, has a 
right to seek redress from the representatives of the people, and 
should he presume to do so, may be told, that, like " blacks and 
mulattoes," he " has no constitutional right to present his petition 
to the General Assembly for any purpose whatever." Again, 
the State of Ohio is deeply indebted to the citizens of other 
States, and also to the subjects of Great Britain, for money bor- 
rowed to construct her canals. Should any of these creditors 
lose their certificates of debt, and ask for their renewal ; or 
should their interest be withheld, or paid in depreciated currency, 
and were they to ask for justice at the hands of the Legislature, 
they might be told, that any attention paid to their request must 
be regarded as a " mere act of privilege or policy, and not im- 
posed by any expressed or implied power of the Constitution," 
for, not being voters, they stood on the same ground as " blacks 
and mulattoes." Such is the folly and wickedness in which 
prejudice against color has involved the legislators of a re- 
publican and professedly Christian State in the nineteenth 
century. 

4. EXCLUSION FROM THE ARMY AND MILITIA. 

The Federal Government is probably the only one in the 
world that forbids a portion of its subjects to participate in the 
national defence, not from any doubts of their courage, loyalty, 
or physical strength, but merely on account of the tincture 
of their skin ! To such an absurd extent is this prejudice 
against color carried, that some of our militia companies have 
occasionally refused to march to the sound of a drum when 
beaten by a black man. To declare a certain class of the 
community unworthy to bear arms in defence of their na- 
tive country, is necessarily to consign that class to general 
contempt. 

33 



382 jay's works. 

5. exclusion from all participation in the adminis- 
tration of justice. 

No colored man can be a judge, juror, or constable. Were 
the talents and acquirements of a Mansfield or a Marshall veiled 
in a sable skin, they would be excluded from the bench of the 
humblest court in the American republic. In the slave States 
generally, no black man can enter a coui*t of justice as a witness 
against a white one. Of course a white man may, with perfect 
impunity, defraud or abuse a negro to any extent, provided he 
is careful to avoid the presence of any of his own caste, at the 
execution of his contract, or the indulgence of his malice. We 
are not aware that an outrage so flagrant is sanctioned by the 
laws of any free State, with one exception. That exception the 
reader will readily believe can be none other than Onio. A 
statute of this State enacts, " that no black or mulatto person or 
persons shall hereafter be permitted to be sworn, or give evi- 
dence in any court of record or elsewhere, in this State, in any 
cause depending, or matter of controversy, when either party to 
the same is a white person ; or in any prosecution of the State 
against any white person." 

We have seen that on the subject of petition the Legislature 
regards itself as independent of all obligation except such as is 
imposed by the constitution. How mindful they are of the re- 
quirements even of that instrument, when obedience to them 
would check the indulgence of their malignity to the blacks, ap- 
pears from the 7th Section of the 8th Article, viz. — " All courts 
shall be open, and every person, for any injury done him in his 
lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due 
cour/se of law, and right and justice administered without denial 
or delay." 

Ohio legislators may deny that negroes and mulattoes are 
citizens, or people ; but they are estopped by the very words of 
the statute just quoted, from denying that they are "persons." 
Now, by the constitution every person, black as well as white, 
is to have justice administered to him without denial or delay. 
But by the law, while any unknown white vagrant may be a 
witness in any case whatever, no black suitor is permitted to 



CONDITION OF THE FREE TEOPLE OF COLOR. 383 

offer a witness of his own color, however well established may 
be his character for intelligence and veracity, to prove his rights 
or his wrongs; and hence in a multitude of cases, justice is de- 
nied in despite of the constitution ; and why denied ? Solely 
from a foolish and wicked prejudice against color. 

6. IMPEDIMENTS TO EDUCATION. 

No people have ever professed so deep a conviction of the 
importance of popular education as ourselves, and no people have 
ever resorted to such cruel expedients to perpetuate abject ig- 
norance. More than one third of the whole population of the 
slave States are prohibited from learning even to read, and in 
some of them, free men, if with dark complexions, are subject to 
stripes for teaching their own children. If we turn to the free 
States, we find that in all of them, without exception, the preju- 
dices and customs of society oppose almost insuperable obstacles 
to the acquisition of a liberal education by colored youth. Our 
academies and colleges are barred against them. "We know 
there are instances of young men with dark skins having been 
received, under peculiar circumstances, into northern colleges ; 
but we neither know nor believe, that there have been a dozen 
such instances within the last thirty years. 

Colored children are . very generally excluded from our com- 
mon schools, in consequence of the prejudices of teachers and 
pai'ents. In some of our cities there are schools exclusively for 
their use, but in the country the colored population is too sparse 
to justify such schools ; and white and black children are rarely 
seen studying under the same roof; although such cases do 
sometimes occur, and then they are confined to elementary 
schools. Some colored young men, who could bear the expense, 
have obtained in European seminaries the education denied 
them in their native land. 

It may not be useless to cite an instance of the malignity with 
which the education of the blacks is opposed. The efforts made 
in Connecticut to prevent the establishment of schools of a 
higher order than usual for colored pupils, are too well known 



384 jay's works. 

to need a recital here ; and her Black Act, prohibiting the in- 
struction of colored children from other States, although now 
expunged from her statute book through the influence of aboli- 
tionists, will long be remembered to the opprobrium of her citi- 
zens. We ask attention to the following illustration of public 
opinion in another New England State. 

In 1834 an academy was built by subscription in Canaan, 
New Hampshire, and a charter granted by the Legislature ; and 
at a meeting of the proprietors it was determined to receive all 
applicants having " suitable moral and intellectual recommenda- 
tions, without other distinctions ; " in other words, without refer- 
ence to complexion. When this determination was made known, 
a town meeting was forthwith convened, and the following res- 
olutions adopted, viz. : 

" Resolved, that we view with abhorrence the attempt of the aboli- 
tionists to establish in this town a school for the instruction of the sable 
sons and daughters of Africa, in common with our sons and daughters. 

" Resolved, that we will not associate with, nor in any way counte- 
nance, any man or woman who shall hereafter persist in attempting to 
establish a school in this town for the exclusive education of blacks, or 
for their education in conjunction with the whites." 

The frankness of this last resolve is commendable. The 
inhabitants of Canaan, assembled in legal town meeting, deter- 
mined, it seems, that the blacks among them should in future 
have no education whatever ; they should not be instructed in 
company with the whites, neither should they have schools 
exclusively for themselves. 

The 'proprietors of the academy supposing, in the simplicity 
of their hearts, that in a free country they might use their prop- 
erty in any manner not forbidden by law, proceeded to open their 
school, and in the ensuing spring, had twenty-eight white, and 
fourteen colored scholars. The crisis had now arrived when the 
cause of prejudice demanded the sacrifice of constitutional 
liberty and of private property. Another town meeting was 
convoked, at which, without a shadow of authority, and in utter 
contempt of law and decency, it was ordered, that the academy 
should be forcibly removed, and a committee was appointed to 
execute the abominable mandate. Due preparations were made 



CONDITION OP THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 385 

for the occasion, and "on the 10th of August, three hundred men 
with ahout two hundred oxen, assembled at the place, and taking 
the edifice from off its foundation, dragged it to a distance, and 
left it a ruin. No one of the actors in this high-handed outrage 
was ever brought before a court of justice to answer for this 
criminal and riotous destruction of the property of others. 

The transaction we have narrated expresses in emphatic 
terms the deep and settled hostility felt in the free States, to the 
education of the blacks. The prejudices of the community ren- 
der that hostility generally effective without the aid of legal 
enactments. Indeed, some remaining regard to decency and 
the opinion of the world, has restrained the Legislatures of the 
free States, with one exception, from consigning these unhappy 
people to ignorance by "decreeing unrighteous decrees," and 
" framing mischief by a law." Our readers, no doubt, feel that 
the exception must of course be Ohio. 

We have seen with what deference Ohio legislators profess to 
regard their constitutional obligations ; and we are now to con- 
template another instance of their shameless violation of them. 
The constitution which these men have sworn to obey declares, 

" No laws shall be passed to prevent the poor of the several 
townships and counties in this State from an equal participation in the 
schools, academies, colleges, and universities in this State, which are 
endowed in whole, or in part, from the revenue arising from donations 
made by the United States, for the support of colleges and schools — 
and the door of said schools, academies, and universities shall be open 
for the reception of scholars, students, and teachers of every grade, 

without ANY DISTINCTION OR PREFERENCE WHATEVER." 

Can language be more explicit or unequivocal ? But have 
any donations been made by the United States for the support 
of colleges and schools in Ohio ? Yes ; by an Act of Congress, 
the sixteenth section of land in each originally surveyed township 
in the State was set apart as a donation for the express purpose 
of endowing and supporting common schools. And now, how 
have the scrupulous legislators of Ohio, who refuse to acknowl- 
edge any other than constitutional obligations to give ear to the 
cry of distress — how have they obeyed this injunction of the 
constitution respecting the freedom of their schools? They 
enacted a law in 1831, declaring that, " when any appropriation 
33* 



386 jay's works. 

shall be made by the directors of any school district, from the 
treasury thereof, for the payment of a teacher, the school in such 
district shall be open " — to whom ? — "to scholars, students, 
and teachers of every grade, without distinction or pireference, 
whatever" as commanded by the constitution ? Oh no ! — " shall 
be open to all the WHITE children residing therein ! " Such 
is the impotency of written constitutions, where a sense of moral 
obligation is wanting to enforce them. 

We have now taken a review of the Ohio laws against free 
people of color. Some of them are of old, and others of recent 
date. The opinion entertained of all these laws, new and old, 
by the present legislators of Ohio, may be learned by a resolu- 
tion adopted in January last, (1839) by both houses of the 
Legislature. 

" Resolved, that in the opinion of this General Assembly it is unwise, 
impolitic, and inexpedient to repeal any law now in force imposing 
disabilities upon black or mulatto persons, thus placing them upon an 
equality with the whites, so far as this Legislature can do, and indirectly 
inviting the black population of other States to emigrate to this, to 
the manifest injury of the public interest." 

The best comment on the spirit which dictated this resolve 
is an enactment by the same Legislature, abrogating the supreme 
law which requires us to " do unto others as we would they 
should do unto us," and prohibiting every citizen of Ohio from 
harboring or concealing a fugitive slave, under the penalty of 
fine or imprisonment. General obedience to this vile statute is 
alone wanting to fill to the brim the cup of Ohio's iniquity and 
degradation. She hath done what she could to oppress and 
crush the free negroes within her borders. She is now seeking 
to rechain the slave who has escaped from his fetters. 

7. IMPEDIMENTS TO RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

It is unnecessary to dwell here on the laws of the slave States 
prohibiting the free people of color from learning to read the 
Bible, and, in many instances, from assembling at discretion to 
worship their Creator. These laws, we are assured, are indis- 
pensable to the perpetuity of that " peculiar institution," which 
many masters in Israel are now teaching, enjoys the sanction of 



CONDITION OF TKE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 387 

Him who "will have all men to be saved,, and to come to the 
knowledge of the truth," and who has left to his disciples the 
injunction " search the Scriptures." We turn to the free States, 
in which no institution requires that the light of the glorious 
gospel of Christ should be prevented from shining on any por- 
tion of the population, and inquire how far prejudice here sup- 
plies the place of southern statutes. 

The impediments to education already mentioned, necessarily 
render the acquisition of religious knowledge difficult, and in 
many instances impracticable. In the northern cities, the blacks 
have frequently churches of their own, but in the country they 
are too few and too poor to build churches and maintain minis- 
ters. Of course they must remain destitute of public worship 
and religious instruction, unless they can enjoy these blessings 
in company with the whites. Now there is hardly a church in 
the United States, not exclusively appropriated to the blacks, 
in which one of their number owns a pew, or has a voice in the 
choice of a minister. There are usually, indeed, a few seats in 
a remote part of the church, set apart for their use, and in which 
no white person is ever seen. It is surely not surprising, under 
all the circumstances of the case, that these seats are rarely 
crowded. 

Colored ministers are occasionally ordained in the different 
denominations, but they are kept at a distance by their white 
brethren in the ministry, and are very rarely permitted to enter 
their pulpits ; and still more rarely, to sit at their tables, 
although acknowledged 'to be ambassadors of Christ. The dis- 
tinction of caste is not forgotten, even in the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper, and seldom are colored disciples permitted to eat 
and drink of the memorials of the Redeemer's passion till after 
every white communicant has been served. 

8. IMPEDIMENTS TO HONEST INDUSTRY. 

In this country ignorance and poverty are almost inseparable 
companions ; and it is surely not strange that those should be 
poor whom we compel to be ignorant. The liberal professions 
are virtually sealed against the blacks, if we except the church, 



388 jay's works. 

and even in that, admission is rendered difficult by the obstacles 
placed in their way in acquiring the requisite literary qualifica- 
tions ; * and when once admitted, their administrations are 
confined to their own color. Many of our most wealthy and 
influential citizens have commenced life as ignorant and as pen- 
niless as any negro who loiters in our streets. Had their com- 
plexion been dark, notwithstanding their talents, industry, 
enterprise and probity, they would have continued ignorant and 
penniless, because the paths to learning and to wealth would then 
have been closed against them. There is a conspiracy, embracing 
all the departments of society, to keep the black man ignorant 
and poor. As a general rule, admitting few if any exceptions, 
the schools of literature and of science reject him — the counting 
house refuses to receive him as a bookkeeper, much more as 
a partner — no store admits him as a clerk — no shop as an 
apprentice. Here and there a black man may be found keeping 
a few trifles on a shelf for sale ; and a few acquire, as if by 
stealth, the knowledge of some handicraft ; but almost univers- 
ally these people, both in town and country, are prevented by 
the customs of society from maintaining themselves and their 
families by any other than menial occupations. 

In 1836, a black man of irreproachable character, and who 
by his industry and frugality had accumulated several thousand 
dollars, made application in the City of New York for a carman's 
license, and was refused solely and avowedly on account of his 

* Of the truth of this remark, the trustees of the Episcopal Theological 
Seminary at New York, lately (June, 1839) afforded a striking illustration. 
A young man, regularly acknowledged by the bishop as a candidate for 
orders, and in consequence of such acknowledgment entitled, by an express 
statute of the seminary, to admission to its privileges, presented himself as 
a pupil. But God had given him a dark complexion, and therefore the trus- 
tees, regardless of the statute, barred the doors against him, by a formal 
and deliberate vote. As a compromise between conscience and prejudice, 
the professors offered to give him private instruction — to do in secret what 
they were ashamed to do openly — to confer as a favor what he was entitled 
to demand as a right. The offer was rejected. 

It is worthy of remark, that of the trustees who took an active part against 
the colored candidate, one is the President of the New York Colonization 
Society ; another a manager, and a third, one of its public champions ; and 
that the bishop of the diocese, who wished to exclude his candidate from 
the theological school of which he is both a trustee and a professor, lately 
headed a recommendation in the- newspapers for the purchase of a packet 
ship for Liberia, as likely to "render far more efficient than heretofore, the 
enterprise of colonization." 



CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 389 

complexion ! We have already seen the effort of the Ohio 
Legislature to consign the negroes to starvation by deterring 
others from employing them. Ignorance, idleness, and vice, 
are at once the punishments we inflict upon these unfortunate 
people for their complexion ; and the crimes with which we are 
constantly reproaching them. 

9. LIABILITY TO BE SEIZED, AXD TREATED AS SLAVES. 

An able-bodied colored man sells in the southern market for 
from eight hundred to a thousand dollars ; of course he is worth 
stealing. Colonizationists and slave-holders, and many northern 
divines, solemnly affirm, that the situation of a slave is far pref- 
erable to that of a free negro ; hence it would seem an act of 
humanity to convert the latter into the former. Kidnapping 
being both a lucrative and a benevolent business, it is not strange 
it should be extensively practised. In many of the States this 
business is regulated by law, and there are various ways in 
which the transmutation is legally effected. Thus, in South 
Carolina, if a free negro " entertains " a runaway slave, it may 
be his own wife or child, he himself is turned into a slave. In 
1827, a free woman and her three children underwent this be- 
nevolent process, for entertaining two fugitive children of six 
and nine years old. In Virginia all emancipated slaves remain- 
ing twelve months in the State, are kindly restored to their 
former condition. In Maryland a free negro who marries a 
white woman, thereby acquires all the privileges of a slave — 
and generally, throughout the slave region, including the District 
of Columbia, every negro not known to be free, is mercifully 
considered as a slave, and if his master cannot be ascertained 
he is thrown into a dungeon, and there kept, till by a public sale 
a master can be provided for him. But often the law grants to 
colored men, known to be free, all the advantages of slavery. 
Thus, in Georgia, every free colored man coming into the State, 
and unable to pay a fine of one hundred dollars, become a slave 
for life ; in Florida, insolvent debtors, if black, are SOLD for 
the benefit of their creditors ; and in the District of Columbia a 



390 jay's works. 

free colored man, thrown into jail on suspicion of being a slave 
and proving his freedom, is required by law to be sold as a 
slave, if too poor to pay his jail fees. Let it not be supposed 
that these laws are all obsolete and inoperative. They catch 
many a northern negro, who, in pursuit of his own business, or 
on being decoyed by others, ventures to enter the slave region ; 
and who, of course, helps to augment the wealth of our southern 
brethren. On the 6th of March, 1839, a report by a Committee 
was made to the House of Representatives of the Massachusetts 
Legislature, in which are given the names of seventeen free 
colored men who had been enslaved at the South. It also states 
an instance in which twenty-five colored citizens, belonging to 
Massachusetts, were confined at one time in a southern jail, and 
another instance in which seventy-five free colored persons from 
different free States were confined, all preparatory to their sale 
as slaves according to law. 

The facts disclosed in this report induced the Massachusetts 
Legislature to pass a resolution protesting against the kidnap- 
ping laws of the slave States, " as invading the sacred rights of 
citizens of this commonwealth, as contrary to the Constitution of 
the United States, and in utter derogation of that great principle 
of the common law which presumes every person to be innocent 
until proved to be guilty ; " and ordered the protest to be for- 
warded to the Governors of the several States. 

But it is not at the South alone that freemen may be con- 
verted into slaves " according to law." The Act of Congress 
respecting the recovery of fugitive slaves, affords most extraor- 
dinary facilities for this process, through official corruption and 
individual perjury. By this Act, the claimant is permitted to 
select a justice of the peace, before whom he may bring or send 
his alleged slave, and even to prove his property by affidavit. 
Indeed, in almost every State in the Union, a slave-holder may 
recover at law a human being as his beast of burden, with far 
less ceremony than he could his pig from the possession of his 
neighbor. In only three States is a man, claimed as a slave, en- 
titled to a trial by jury. At the last session of the New York 
Legislature a bill allowing a jury trial in such cases Avas passed 



CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 391 

by the lower House, but rejected by a democratic vote in the 
Senate, democracy in that State being avowedly only skin deep, 
all its principles of liberty, equality, and human rights depending 
on complexion. 

Considering the wonderful ease and expedition with which 
fugitives may be recovered by law, it would be very strange if 
mistakes did not sometimes occur. How often they occur cannot, 
of course, be known, and it is only when a claim is defeated, that 
we are made sensible of the exceedingly precarious tenure by 
which a poor friendless negro at the North holds his personal 
liberty. A few years since, a girl of the name of Mary Gilmore 
was arrested in Philadelphia, as a fugitive slave from Maryland. 
Testimony was not wanting in support of the claim ; yet it was 
most conclusively proved that she was the daughter of poor Irish 
parents — having not a drop of negro blood in her veins ; that the 
father had absconded, and that the mother had died a drunkard 
in the Philadelphia hospital, and that the infant had been kindly 
received and brought up in a colored family. Hence the attempt 
to make a slave of her. In the spring of 1839, a colored man 
was arrested in Philadelphia, on a charge of having absconded 
from his owner twenty-three years before. This man had a wife 
and family depending upon him, and a home where he enjoyed 
their society ; and yet, unless he could find witnesses who could 
prove his freedom for more than this number of years, he was 
to be torn from his wife, his children, his home, and doomed for 
the remainder of his days to toil under the lash. Four witnesses 
for the claimant swore to his identity, although they had not 
seen him before for twenty-three years ! By a most extraordi- 
nary coincidence, a New England captain, with whom this negro 
had sailed twenty-nine years before, in a sloop from Nantucket, 
happened at this very time to be confined for debt in the same 
prison with the alleged slave, and the captain's testimony, to- 
gether with that of some other witnesses, who had known the 
man previous to his pretended elopement, so fully established 
his freedom, that the court discharged him. 

Another mode of legal kidnapping still remains to be described. 
By the Federal Constitution, fugitives from justice are to be de- 



392 jay's works. 

livered up, and under this constitutional provision, a free negro 
may be converted into a slave without troubling even a justice of 
the peace to hear the evidence of the captor's claim. A fugitive 
slave is of course a felon ; he not only steals himself, but also the 
rags on his back which belong to his master. It is understood 
he has taken refuge in New York, and his master naturally 
wishes to recover him with as little noise, trouble, and delay as 
possible. The way is simple and easy. Let the Grand Jury 
indict A. B. for stealing wearing apparel, and let the indictment, 
with an affidavit of the criminal's flight, be forwarded by the 
Governor of the State to his Excellency of New York, with a 
requisition for the delivery of A. B. to the agent appointed to 
receive him. A warrant is, of course, issued to " any constable 
of the State of New York," to arrest A. B. For what pur- 
pose ? — to bring him before a magistrate where his identity may 
be established ? — no, but to deliver him up to the foreign agent. 
Hence, the constable may pick up the first likely negro he finds 
in the street, and ship him to the South ; and should it be found, 
on his arrival on the plantation, that the wrong man has come, 
it will also probably be found that the mistake is of no conse- 
quence to the planter. A few years since, the Governor of New 
York signed a warrant for the apprehension of seventeen Vir- 
ginia negroes, as fugitives from justice.* Under this warrant, 
a man who had lived in the neighborhood for three years, and 
had a wife and children, and who claimed to be free, was seized, 
on a Sunday evening, in the public highway, in West Chester 
County, N. Y., and without being permitted to take leave of his 
family, was instantly handcuffed, thrown into a carriage, and 
hurried to New York, and the next morning was on his voyage 
to Virginia. 

Free colored men are converted into slaves not only by law, 
but also contrary to law. It is, of course, difficult to estimate the 
extent to which illegal kidnapping is carried, since a large num- 

* There is no evidence that he knew they were negroes, or that he acted 
otherwise than in perfect good faith. The alleged crime was stealing a boat. 
The real crime, it is said, was stealing themselves and escaping in a boat. 
The most horrible abuses of these warrants can only be prevented by requir- 
ing proof of identity before delivery. 



CONDITION OF THE FREE FEOPLE OF COLOR. 393 

ber of cases must escape detection. In a work published by 
Judge Stroud, of Philadelphia, in 1827, he states, that it had 
been ascertained that more than thirty free colored persons, mostly 
children, had been kidnapped in that city within the last two 
years.* 

10. SUBJECTION TO INSULT AND OUTRAGE. 

The feeling of the community towards these people, and the 
contempt with which they are treated, are indicated by the fol- 
lowing notice, lately published by the proprietors of a menagerie, 
in New York. " The proprietors wish it to be understood, that 
people of color are not permitted to enter, except when in attend- 
ance upon children and families." For two shillings, any white 
scavenger would be freely admitted, and so would negroes, pro- 
vided they came in a capacity that marked their dependence ; 
their presence is offensive, only when they come as independent 
spectators, gratifying a laudable curiosity. 

Even death, the great leveller, is not permitted to obliterate, 
among Christians, the distinction of caste, or to rescue the life- 
less form of the colored man from the insults of his white breth- 
ren. In the porch of a Presbyterian Church, in Philadelphia, 
in 1837, was suspended a card, containing the form of a deed, to 
be given to purchasers of lots in a certain burial ground, and to 
enhance the value of the property, and to entice buyers, the fol- 
lowing clause was inserted : " No person of color, nor any one 
who has been the subject of execution, shall be interred in said 
lot." 

Our colored fellow-citizens, like others, are occasionally called 
to pass from one place to another ; and in doing so are com- 
pelled to submit to innumerable hardships and indignities. They 
are frequently denied seats in our stage coaches ; and although 
admitted upon the decks of our steamboats, are almost universally 
excluded from the cabins. Even women have been forced, in 
cold weather, to pass the night upon deck, and in one instance 

* Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws, p. 94. 
34 



394 jay's works. 

the wife of a colored clergyman lost her life in consequence of 
such an exposure. 

The contempt poured upon these people by our laws, our 
churches, our seminaries, our professions, naturally invokes upon 
their heads the fierce wrath of vulgar malignity. In order to 
exhibit the actual condition of this portion of our population, we 
will here insert some samples of the outrages to which they are 
subjected, taken from the ordinary public journals. 

In an account, of the New York riots of 1834, the Commercial 
Advertiser says : 

" About twenty poor African (native American) families, have had 
their all destroyed, and have neither bed, clothing, nor food remaining. 
Their houses are completely eviscerated, their furniture a wreck, and 
the ruined and disconsolate tenants of the devoted houses are reduced 
to the necessity of applying to the corporation for bread." 

The example set in New York was zealously followed in Phil- 
adelphia. 

" Some arrangement, it appears, existed between the mob and the 
white inhabitants, as the dwelling-houses of the latter, contiguous to 
the residences of the blacks, were illuminated and left undisturbed, 
while the huts of the negroes were singled out with unerring certainty. 
The furniture found in these houses was generally broken up and de- 
stroyed — beds ripped open and their contents scattered in the streets. 

The number of houses assailed was not less than 

twenty. In one house there was a corpse, which was thrown from the 
coffin, and in another a dead infant was taken out of the bed, and cast 
on the floor, the mother being at the same time barbarously treated." Phil- 
adelphia Gazette. 

" No case is reported of an attack having been invited or provoked 
by the residents of the dwellings assailed or destroyed. The extent of 
the depredations committed on the three evenings of riot and outrage 
can only be judged of by the number of houses damaged or destroyed. 
So far as ascertained, this amounts to forty-five. One of the houses 
assaulted was occupied by an unfortunate cripple, who, unable to fly 
from the fury of the mob, was so beaten by some of the ruffians, that 
he has since died in consequence of the bruises and wounds inflicted. 
. . . . For the last two days the Jersey steamboats have been 
loaded with numbers of the colored population, who, fearful their lives 
were not safe in this, determined to seek refuge in another State. On 
the Jersey side, tents were erected, and the negroes have taken up a 
temporary residence, until a prospect shall be offered for their perpet- 
ual location in some place of security and liberty." National Gazette. 



CONDITION OP THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR. 395 

The facts we have now exhibited, abundantly prove the ex- 
treme cruelty and sinfulness of that prejudice against color 
which we are impiously told is an ordination of Providence. 
Colonizationists, assuming the prejudice to be natural and invin- 
cible, propose to remove its victims beyond its influence. Abo- 
litionists, on the contrary, remembering with the Psalmist, that 
" It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves," believe that 
the benevolent Father of us all requires us to treat with justice 
and kindness every portion of the human family, notwithstanding 
any particular organization he has been pleased to impress upon 
them. Instead, therefore, of gratifying and fostering this preju- 
dice, by continually banishing from our country those against 
whom it is directed, abolitionists are anxious to destroy the preju- 
dice itself ; feeling, to use the language of another, that " It is 
time to recognize in the humblest portions of society, partakers 
of our nature with all its high prerogatives and awful destinies — 
time to remember that our distinctions are exterior and evanes- 
cent, our resemblance real and permanent — that all is transient 
but what is moral and spiritual — that the only graces we can 
carry with us into another world, are graces of divine implanta- 
tion, and that amid the rude incrustations of poverty and igno- 
rance there lurks an imperishable jewel — a soul, susceptible of 
the highest spiritual beauty, destined, perhaps, to adorn the 
celestial abodes, and to shine forever in the mediatorial diadem 
of the Son of God. Take heed that ye despise not one of these 
little ones" 



ADDRESS 



TO THE FRIENDS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY, ON THE 

VIOLATION BY THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES OF THE RIGHT 

OF PETITION. 



1840. 



To the Friends of Constitutional Liberty: — 

There was a time, fellow citizens, when the above address 
would have included the People of the United States. 
But, alas ! the freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the 
right of petition, are now hated and dreaded by our Southern 
citizens, as hostile to the perpetuity of human bondage ; while, 
by their political influence in the Federal Government, they 
have induced members at the North to unite with them in their 
sacrilegious crusade against these inestimable privileges. 

On the 28th of January last, the House of Representatives, 
on motion of Mr. Johnson, from Maryland, made it a standing 
rule of the House that " no petition, memorial, resolution, or 
other paper, praying the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia, or any State or Territory of the United States, in 
which it now exists, shall be received by the House, or 

ENTERTAINED IN ANY "WAY "WHATEVER." 

Thus has the right of petition been immolated in the 

very Temple of Liberty, and offered up, a propitiatory sacrifice 

to the demon of slavery. Never before has an outrage so 

unblushingly profligate been perpetrated upon the Federal Con- 

34» 



398 jay's works. 

stitution. Yet, while we mourn the degeneracy which this 
transaction evinces, we behold, in its attending circumstances, 
joyful omens of the triumph which awaits our struggle with the 
hateful power that now perverts the General Government into 
an engine of cruelty and loathsome oppression. 

Before we congratulate you on these omens, let us recall to 
your recollection the steps by which the enemies of human 
rights have advanced to their present rash and insolent defiance 
of moral and constitutional obligation. 

In 1831, a newspaper was established in Boston, for the pur- 
pose of disseminating facts and arguments in favor of the duty 
and policy of immediate emancipation. The Legislature of 
Georgia, with all the recklessness of despotism, passed a law, 
offering a reward of $5000, for the abduction of the editor, and 
his delivery in Georgia. As there was no law by which a citi- 
zen of Massachusetts could be tried in Georgia, for expressing 
his opinions in the capital of his own State, this reward was 
intended as the price of BLOOD. Do you start at the sugges- 
tion ? Remember the several sums of $25,000, of $50,000, and 
of $100,000, offered in Southern papers for kidnapping certain 
abolitionists. Remember the horrible inflictions by Southern 
Lynch clubs. Remember the declaration, in the United States 
Senate, by the brazen-fronted Preston, that, should an abolitionist 
be caught in Carolina, he would be HANGED. But, as the 
slave-holders could not destroy the lives of the abolitionists, they 
determined to murder their characters. Hence, the President of 
the United States was induced, in his Message of 1835, to Con- 
gress, to charge them with plotting the massacre of the Southern 
planters ; and even to stultify himself, by affirming that, for this 
purpose, they were engaged in sending, by mail, inflammatory 
appeals to the slaves — sending papers to men who could not 
read them, and by a conveyance through which they could not 
receive them ! He well knew that the papers alluded to were 
appeals on the immorality of converting men, women, and chil- 
dren, into beasts of burden, and were sent to the masters for 
their consideration. The masters in Charleston, dreading the 
moral influence of these appeals on the conscience of the slave- 



VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 399 

holding community, forced the Post Office, and made a bonfire 
of the papers. The Postmaster-General, with the sanction of 
the President, also hastened to their relief, and, in violation of 
oaths, and laws, and the Constitution, established ten thousand 
censors of the press, each one of whom was authorized to 
abstract from the mail every paper which he might think too 
favorable to the rights of man. 

For more than twenty years, petitions have been presented 
to Congress, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia. The right to present them, and the power of Congress 
to grant their prayer, were, until recently, unquestioned. But 
the rapid multiplication of these petitions alarmed the slave- 
holders, and, knowing that they tended to keep alive at the 
North, an interest in the slave, they deemed it good policy to 
discourage and, if possible, suppress all such applications. 
Hence Mr. Pinckney's famous resolution, in 1836, declaring, 
" that all petitions, or papers, relating in any way, or to any 
extent whatever to the subject of slavery, shall, without being 
printed or referred, be laid on the table ; and no further action 
whatever shall be had thereon ! " 

The peculiar atrocity of this resolution was, that it not merely 
trampled upon the rights of the petitioners, but took from each 
member of the House his undoubted privilege, as a legislator of 
the District, to introduce any proposition he might think proper, 
for the protection of the slaves. In every slave State there are 
laws affording, at least, some nominal protection to these unhappy 
beings ; but, according to this resolution, slaves might be flayed 
alive in the streets of Washington, and no representative of the 
people could offer even a resolution for inquiry. And this vile 
outrage upon constitutional liberty was avowedly perpetrated 
" to repress agitation, to allay excitement, and reestablish har- 
mony and tranquillity among the various sections of the Union ! ! " 

But this strange opiate did not produce the stupefying effects 
anticipated from it. In 1836, the petitioners were only 37,000 
— the next session they numbered 110,000. Mr. Hawes, of 
Kentucky, now essayed to restore tranquillity by gagging the 
uneasy multitude ; but, alas ! at the next Congress, more than 



400 JAV's WORKS. 

300,000 petitioners carried new terror to the hearts of the slave- 
holders. The next anodyne was prescribed by Mr. Patten, of 
Virginia, but its effect was to i*ouse from their stupor some of 
the northern Legislatures, and to induce them to denounce his 
remedy as " a usurpation of power, a violation of the Constitu- 
tion, subversive of the fundamental principles of the govern- 
ment, and at war with the prerogatives of the people." * It 
was now supposed that the people must be drugged by a northern 
man, and Atkerton was found a fit instrument for this vile pur- 
pose ; but the dose proved only the more nauseous and exciting 
from the foul hands by which it was administered. 

In these various outrages, although all action on the petitions 
was prohibited, the papers themselves were received and laid on 
the table, and therefore it was contended, that the right of petition 
had been preserved inviolate. But the slave-holders, maddened 
by the failure of all their devices, and fearing the influence 
which the mere sight of thousands and tens of thousands of 
petitions in behalf of liberty, would exert, and taking advantage 
of the approaching presidential election to operate upon the sel- 
fishness of some northern members, have succeeded in crushing 
the right of petition itself. 

That you may be the more sensible, fellow citizens, of the 
exceeding profligacy of the late rule, and of its palable viola- 
tion of both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution, which 
those who voted for it had sworn to support, suffer us to recall 
to your recollection a few historical facts. 

The framers of the Federal Constitution supposed the right 
of petition too firmly established in the habits and affections of 
the people, to need a constitutional guaranty. Their omission to 
notice it aroused the jealousy of some of the State conventions, 
called to pass upon the constitution. The Virginia convention 
proposed, as an amendment, " that every freeman has a right to 
petition, or apply to the Legislature, for a redress of grievances." 
And this amendment, with others, was ordered to be forwarded 
to the different States, for their consideration. The conventions 
of North Carolina, New York, and Rhode Island, were held 

* Resolutions of Massachusetts and Connecticut, April and May, 1S38. 



VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 401 

subsequently, and, of course, had before them the Virginia 
amendment. The North Carolina convention adopted a declar- 
ation of rights, embracing the very words of the proposed 
amendment ; and this declaration was ordered to be submitted 
to Congress, before that State would enter the Union. The 
conventions of New York and of Rhode Island incorporated in 
their certificates of ratification, the assertion that " Every person 
has a right to petition or apply to the Legislature for a redress 
of grievances " — using the Virginia phraseology, merely substi- 
tuting the word person for freeman, thus claiming the right of 
petition even for slaves ; while Virginia and North Carolina 
confined it to freemen. 

The first Congress, assembled under the Constitution, gave 
effect to the wishes thus emphatically expressed, by proposing, 
as an amendment, that " Congress shall make no law respecting 
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof, or abridging the freedom of the press, or the right of the 
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition Government for a 
redress of grievances." This amendment was duly ratified by 
the States, and when members of Congress swear to support the 
Constitution of the United States, they are as much bound by 
their oath to refrain from abridging the right of petition, as they 
are to fulfil any other constitutional obligation. And will the 
slave-holders and their abettors dare to maintain that they have 
not foresworn themselves, because they have abridged the right 
of the people to petition for a redress of grievances by a rule 
of the House, and not by a law ? If so, they may by a rule 
require every member, on taking his scat, to subscribe to the 
creed of a particular church, and then call their Maker to 
witness that they are guiltless of making a law "respecting 
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof." 

The right to petition is one thing, and the disposition of a 
petition after it is received, is another. But the new rule makes 
no disposition of the petitions ; it prohibits their reception; 
they may not be brought into the legislative chamber, Hun- 



402 jay's works. 

dreds of thousands of the people are debarred all access to their 
representatives, for the purpose of offering them a prayer. 

It is said that the manifold abominations perpetrated in the 
District are no grievances to the petitioners, and therefore they 
have no right to ask for their removal. But the right guaran- 
teed by the Constitution, is a right to ask for the redress of 
grievances, whether personal, social, or moral. And who, ex- 
cept a slave-holder, will dare to contend that it is no grievance 
that our agents, our representatives, our servants, in our name 
and by our authority, enact laws erecting and licensing markets 
in the Capital of the Republic, for the sale of human beings, 
and converting free men into slaves for no other crime than 
that of being too poor to pay United States officers the jail 
fees accruing from an iniquitous imprisonment ? 

Again, it is pretended that the objects prayed for are palpa- 
bly unconstitutional, and that therefore the petitions ought not to 
be received. And by what authority are the people deprived 
of their right to petition for any object which a majority of 
either House of Congress, for the time being, may please to 
regard as unconstitutional ? If this usurpation be submitted to, 
it will not be confined to abolition petitions. It is well known 
that most of the slave-holders noio insist, that all protecting 
duties are unconstitutional, and that on account of the tariff the 
Union was nearly rent by the very men who are now horrified 
by the danger to which it is exposed by these petitions ! Should 
our northern manufacturers again presume to ask Congress to 
protect them from foreign competition, the southern members will 
find a precedent, sanctioned by northern votes, for a rule that 
" no petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper, praying for 

the IMPOSITION OP DUTIES FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MAN- 
UFACTURES, shall be received by the House, or entertained in 
any way whatever." 

It does indeed recpiire southern arrogance to maintain that, 
although Congress is invested by the Constitution with " exclu- 
sive jurisdiction, in all cases whatsoever," over the District of 
Columbia, yet that it would be so palpably unconstitutional to 



VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 403 

abolish the slave-trade, and to emancipate the slaves in the 
District, that petitions for these objects ought not to be received. 
Yet this is asserted in that very House, on whose minutes is 
recorded a resolution, in 181 G, appointing a committee, with 
power to send for persons and papers, " to inquire into the ex- 
istence of an inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves, carried on, in 
and through the District of Columbia, and report whether any, 
and what means are necessary for putting a stop to the same : " 
and another, in 1829, instructing the Committee on the District 
of Columbia to inquire into the expediency of providing by law, 
" for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District." 

In the very first Congress assembled under the Federal Con- 
stitution, petitions were presented, asking its interposition for 
the mitigation of the evils, and final abolition of the African 
slave-trade, and also praying it, as far as it possessed the power, 
to take measures for the abolition of slavery. These petitions 
excited the wrath and indignation of many of the slave-holding 
members, yet no one thought of refusing to receive them. They 
were referred to a select committee, at the instance of Mi-. 
Madison himself, who " entered into a critical review of the 
circumstances respecting the adoption of the Constitution, and 
the ideas upon the limitation of the powers of Congress, to 
interfere in the regulation of the commerce of slaves, and showed 
that they undoubtedly were not precluded from interposing in 
their importation ; and generally to regulate the mode in which 
every species of business shall be transacted. He adverted to 
the western country, and the cession of Georgia, in which Con- 
gress have certainly the power to regulate the subject, of slavery ; 
which shows that gentlemen are mistaken in supposing that 
Congress cannot constitutionally interfere in the business in any 
degree whatever. He was in favor of committing the petition, 
and justified the measure by repeated precedents in the pro- 
ceedings of the House." U. S. Gazette, 11th Feb., 1790. 

Here we find one of the earliest and ablest expounders of 
the Constitution, maintaining the power of Congress to "regu- 
late the subject of slavery " in the national territories, and urg- 
ing the reference of abolition petitions to a special committee. 



404 jay's works. 

The committee made a report, for which, after a long debate, 
was substituted a declaration, by the House, that Congress could 
not abolish the slave-trade prior to the year 1808, but had a 
right so to regulate it as to provide for the humane treatment of 
the slaves on the passage ; and that Congress could not inter- 
fere in the emancipation or treatment of slaves in the States. 

Tiiis declaration gave entire satisfaction, and no farther 
abolition petitions were presented, till after the District of 
Columbia had been placed under the " exclusive jurisdiction" 
of the General Government. 

You all remember, fellow citizens, the wide-spread excite- 
ment which a few years since prevailed on the subject of Sun- 
day mails. Instead of attempting to quiet the agitation, by 
outraging the rights of the petitioners, Congress referred the 
petitions to a committee, and made no attempt to stifle discus- 
sion. 

Why, then, we ask, Avith such authorities and precedents 
before them, do the slave-holders in Congress, regardless of 
their oaths, strive to gag the friends of freedom, under pretence 
of allaying agitation ? Because conscience does make cowards 
of them all — because they know the accursed system they are 
upholding will not bear the light — because they fear, if these 
petitions are discussed, the abominations of the American slave- 
trade, the secrets of the prison-houses in Washington and Alex- 
andria, and the horrors of the human shambles licensed by the 
authority of Congress, will be exposed to the scorn and indigna- 
tion of the civilized world. 

Unquestionably the late rule surpasses, in its profligate con- 
tempt of constitutional obligation, any act in the annals of the 
Federal Government. As such it might well strike every pat- 
riot with dismay, were it not that attending circumstances teach 
us that it is the expiring effort of desperation. When we reflect 
on the past subserviency of our northern representatives to the 
mandates of the slave-holders, we may well raise on the present 
occasion, the shout of triumph, and hail the vote on the recent 
rule as the pledge of a glorious victory. Suffer us to recall to 
your recollection the majorities by which the successive attempts 



VIOLATION OF THE EIGHT OF PETITION. 405 

to crush the right of petition and the freedom of debate have 
been carried. 

Pinckney's Gag was passed May, 1836, by a majority of 51 

Hawes's " Jan. 1837, 58 

Patton's " Dec. 1837, 48 

Atherton's " Dec. 1838, 48 

Johnson's " Jan. 1840, 6 

Surely, when we find the majority against us reduced from 58 
to 6, we need no new incentive to perseverance. 

Another circumstance which marks the progress of constitu- 
tional liberty, is the gradual diminution in the number of our 
northern serviles. The votes from the free States in favor of the 
several gags were as follows : 

For Pinckney's, 62 

For Hawes's, 70 

For Patton's, 52 

For Atherton's, 49 

For Johnson's, 28 

There is also another cheering fact connected with the passage 
of the rule which deserves to be noticed. Heretofore the 
slave-holders have uniformly, by enforcing the previous ques- 
tion, imposed their several gags by a silent vote. On the present 
occasion they were twice baffled in their efforts to stifle debate,. 
and were, for days together, compelled to listen to speeches on a 
subject which they have so often declared should not be dis- 
cussed. 

A base strife for southern votes has hitherto, to no small 
extent, enlisted both the political parties at the North in the 
service of the slave-holders. The late unwonted independence 
of northern politicians, and the deference paid by them to the 
wishes of their own constituents, in preference to those of their 
southern colleagues, indicate the advance of public opinion. 
No less than forty-nine northern members of the administration 
party voted for the Atherton gag, while only twenty-seven dared 
to record their names in favor of Johnson's ; and of the repre- 
sentation of SIX States, every vote was given against the rule, 
without distinction of party. The tone in which opposite politi- 
3o 



406 jay's works. 

cal journals denounce the late outrage may warn the slave-holders 
that they will not much longer hold the North in bonds. The 
leading administration paper in the city of New York regards 
the rule with "utter abhorrence ;" while the official paper of the 
opposition, edited by the State printer, trusts that the names of 
the recreant northerners who voted for it may be " handed 
.down to eternal infamy and execration." 

The advocates of abolition are no longer consigned to unmiti- 
gated contempt and obloquy. Passing by the various living 
illustrations of our remark, we appeal for our proofs to the dead. 
The late William Leggett, the editor of a Democratic Jour- 
nal in the city of New York, was denounced, in 1835, by the 
" Democratic Republican General Committee," for his abolition 
doctrines. Far from faltering in his course, on account of the 
censure of his own party, he exclaimed, with a presentiment 
almost amounting to prophecy, " The stream of public opinion 
now sets against us, but it is about to turn, and the regurgitation 
will be tremendous. Proud in that day may well be the man 
who can float in triumph on the first refluent wave, swept onward 
by the deluge which he himself, in advance of his fellows, had 
largely shared in occasioning. Such be my fate ; and, living 
or dying, it will in some measure be mine. I have written my 
name in ineffaceable letters on the abolition record." And he 
did live to behold the first swelling of the refluent wave. The 
denounced abolitionist was honored by a Democratic President 
with a diplomatic mission ; and since his death, the resolution 
condemning him has been expunged from the minutes of the 
Democratic committee. 

Of the many victims of the recent awful calamity in our 
waters, what name has been most frequently uttered by the 
pulpit and the press in the accents of lamentation and panegyric ? 
On whose tomb have freedom, philanthropy, and letters been 
invoked to strew their funeral wreaths ? All who have heard 
of the loss of the Lexington are familiar with the name of 
Charles Follen. And who was he ? One of the men offi- 
cially denounced by President Jackson as a gang of miscreants, 
plotting insurrection and murder — and recently a member 



VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 407 

of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery 
Society. 

Let us then, fellow-citizens, in view of all these things, thank 
God and take courage. "We are now contending, not merely for 
the emancipation of our unhappy fellow-men, kept in bondage 
under the authority of our own representatives — not merely for 
the overthrow of the human shambles erected by Congress on 
the national domain — but also for the preservation of those 
great constitutional rights which were acquired by our fathers, 
and are now assailed by the slave-holders and their northern 
auxiliaries. That you may remember these auxiliaries and 
avoid giving them new opportunities of betraying your rights, 
we annex a list of their dishonored names. 

The following twenty-eight members from the free States 
voted in the affirmative on the recent gag rule. 

MAINE. 

Virgil D. Parris, Albert Smith. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

Charles G. Atherton, Ira A. Eastman, 

Edmund Burke, Tristram Shaw. 

NEW YORK. 

Nehemiah H. Earle, James de la Montayne, 

John Fine, John H. Prentiss, 

Nathaniel Jones, Theron R. Strong. 
Governeur Kemble, 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

John Davis, George M'Cullough, 

Joseph Fornance, David Petriken, 

James Gerry, William S. Eamsay. 

OHIO. 

D. P. Leadbetter, George Sweeney, 

William MedilL, Jonathan Taylor, 

Isaac Parrish, John B. Weller. 

INDIANA. 

John Davis, George H. Promt 

ILLINOIS. 
John Reynolds, 



408 jay's works. 

Let us turn to our more immediate representatives, and, we 
trust, more faithful servants. Our State Legislatures will not 
refuse to hear our prayers. Let us petition them immediately 
to rebuke the treason by which the Constitution has been sur- 
rendered into the hands of the slave-holders ; let us implore 
them to demand from Congress, in the name of the free States, 
that they shall neither destroy nor abridge the right of peti- 
tion, — a right without which our government would be con- 
verted into a despotism. 

"We call on you, fellow-citizens of every religious faith and 
party name, to unite with us in guarding the citadel of our 
country's freedom. If there are any who will not cooperate 
with us in laboring for the emancipation of the slave, surely 
there are none who will stand aloof from us while contending 
for the liberty of themselves, their children, and their children's 
children. 

To the rescue, then, felloAv citizens ! and, trusting in Him 
without whom all human effort is weakness, let us not doubt 
that our faithful endeavors to preserve the rights He has given 
us, will, through His blessing, be crowned with success. 

New York, February 13, 1840. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 

TO THE REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH CONTAINED IN 

THE RECENT " HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT 

EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN AMERICA," BY 

THE BISHOP OF OXFORD. 



1846. 



It is not probable that the reader has ever seen the History 
mentioned in our title. That a history of the American Church, 
from its earliest date down to the death of Bishop White, writ- 
ten by a dignitary of the mother Church, distinguished alike by 
his honored name and elevated rank, should be almost un- 
known in this country, is a singular and very peculiar fact. No 
people are more sensitive than ourselves to the opinions of for- 
eigners ; and American Episcopalians naturally feel much inter- 
est in the views entertained of them by their English brethren* 
Indeed, the interest is not confined to such views, but extends to 
whatever affects the English Church. The parties which agitate 
the establishment are reflected in our controversies ; and the 
tracts and volumes issued by the theological combatants on the 
other side of the water, are republished and eagerly perused on 
this. Yet here is a history of ourselves, in no small degree eulo- 
gistic, and on various accounts claiming our attention, which has 
been virtually suppressed. 

It is indeed true, that as soon as the book reached our shores, 
one or two of our " enterprising publishers" announced their in- 
tention of reprinting it, and one of the proposed editions was to 
35* 



410 jay's works. 

have been introduced to the notice of the Church under the 
auspices of a Right Reverend editor. But these announce- 
ments have been followed by " expressive silence." More than 
twelve months have elapsed, and the Church is still without an 
American copy of the History. This concealment of Dr. Wil- 
berforce's work is obviously intentional, and not accidental. The 
very title of the book and the name of the author would have 
secured a rapid sale for the reprint. Some weighty motive must 
have induced our publishers to abandon their original intention, 
at the sacrifice of pecuniary interest. The motive is obvious, 
and probably one or more southern bishops have exerted their 
influence. The author of the History, in the course of his work, 
advances certain doctrines on the subject of Slavery, and of 
Caste in the Church, which it is thought inconvenient to 
discuss, and which cannot be admitted in this Republic without 
sealing the condemnation of almost every Christian sect among 
us, and overwhelming our own Church with shame and confu- 
sion. There are, it is to be feared, but few among our twelve 
hundred clergymen, who, on reading the History, would not find 
their consciences whispering, " Thou art the man," and who 
would not be anxious to conceal the volume from their parishion- 
ers. Hence its suppression. 

It is common to personify the Church, and to speak of her as 
of some spotless celestial being ; and yet she, in fact, consists of 
her clerical and lay members, each one of whom must personally 
answer at the bar of Christ for his participation in every sin 
committed by the Church. Surely, it would be more becoming 
Christian men to inquire how far they are individually guilty of 
the offences charged upon them by Bishop Wilberforcc, than to 
•endeavor to stifle investigation, by burying in oblivion the faithful 
and Christain rebuke of their English brother. 

Religious establishments tend to render the clergy obsequious 
to the civil ruler, and our voluntary system tempts them to do 
homage to the most capricious and irresponsible of all tyrants, 
the will of the multitude. Let us see what true and faithful 
allegiance our " Primitive and Apostolic Church" has borne to 
this American despot. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 411 

On the 21st of August, 1831, occurred the negro insurrection 
and massacre at Southampton, Virginia. This disastrous event 
necessarily directed public attention, both at the North and the 
South, to the subject of slavery. In one portion of the Union 
stronger fetters were forged for the bondman, and gi-eater efforts 
made to banish to Africa the free colored man, whose presence 
it was supposed quickened the aspirations of the slave for free- 
dom. In the other portion, this insurrection impressed on a few 
pious and reflecting minds a conviction both of the moral and 
political evils of slavery, and of the duty of combined action for 
its total abolition. In 1832 the NeAv England Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety was formed, and the succeeding year witnessed the organi- 
zation of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Auxiliary asso- 
ciations sprang rapidly into being, funds were liberally bestowed, 
presses were established, and publications portraying the abom- 
inations of the system were abundantly scattered throughout 
the land. 

This agitation both alarmed and irritated the slave-holders ; 
and while on the one hand they endeavored to intimidate the 
abolitionists by their murderous violence, they appealed to the 
selfish passions of the northern community, by promising their 
votes and their trade to such only as would aid in suppressing 
the discussion of slaveiy. Immediately, our contending factions 
and our commercial cities rivalled each other in demonstrations 
of sympathy for their " southern brethren," and of abhorrence 
for abolitionists. The clergy, yielding to the blast, generally 
observed a prudent silence, while a few, to prove their freedom 
from fanaticism, assailed the abolitionists for their violence and 
rashness, protesting, however, against being considered the ad- 
vocates of slavery "in the abstract." 

On the clergy of the South, however, a more onerous task was 
imposed. The northern movement was a religious one, impelled 
by a belief of the sinfulness of slavery. Hence it became im- 
portant that southern consciences should be encased in mail, im- 
penetrable to anti-slavery missiles. The fabrication of such a 
panoply was consigned to the ministers of Christ, and significant 
hints were given them that they must not shrink from the work. 



412 jay's works. 

A meeting of slave-holders in Mississippi, after resolving that 
any individual who should circulate anti-slavery papers in the State 
"is justly worthy, in the sight of God and man, of immediate 
death," voted, "that the clergy of the State of Mississippi be 
hereby recommended at once to take a stand upon this subject, 
and that their further silence in relation to this subject (slavery) 
will, in our opinion, be subject to serious censure." 

This pastoral admonition from the Lynchei'S was received with 
due reverence by those to whom it was directed. Presently two 
Mississippi Presbyteries passed resolutions in favor of the Chris- 
tian character of slavery. A Mississippi divine published an 
elaborate vindication of the system, and a Methodist periodical 
in the State announced that it would " recognize the right of man 
to hold property in man." 

In other slave States the clergy were suddenly aroused to a 
neAV energy in vindicating the divine institution of human bond- 
age. Presbyteiies, Methodist conferences, Baptist associations, 
individual ministers, were busily at work descanting on the sin 
of Ham, and the curse pronounced on Canaan, discussing He- 
brew servitude, and proving that negro slavery was not forbid- 
den in the New Testament. As a specimen of the fulminations 
launched by some of these servants of the Most High against ab- 
olitionists, we may cite the peroration of an address to a meeting 
of slave-holders in South Carolina by the Rev. Mr. Postell, of 
the Methodist Church. " Shun abolition as you would the 
Devil. Do your duty as citizens and Christians, and in heaven 
you will be rewarded, and delivered from abolitionism." 

In this mighty rivalry in preaching smooth things to the slave- 
holders, " the sects " were not permitted to gain a triumph. On 
the 27th of November, 1836, the Rev. George "W. Freeman, 
after morning service, ascended the pulpit of Christ Church, 
Raleigh, North Carolina, and announced to his delighted hear- 
ers the good news that the slavery of white men and of black 
men, of the wise and of the simple, of the learned and of the 
ignorant, was sanctioned by God, and approved by Jesus Christ 
and his holy apostles. This commissioned ambassador of the 
Redeemer proclaimed, "that no man nor set of men in our 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 413 

DAT, UNLESS THEY CAN PRODUCE A NEW REVELATION FROM 

Heaven, are entitled to pronounce slavery wrong ; and 

that SLAVERY AS IT EXISTS AT THE PRESENT DAY IS AGREE- 
ABLE TO THE ORDER OF DlVINE PROVIDENCE." 

The fact that any institution involves duties, proves its law- 
fulness, since no duty can attach to a sinful practice. Hence 
our preacher, after employing the morning of the Lord's day in 
expounding the divine rights of the slave-holders, devoted the 
afternoon of the same holy time in proclaiming their duties. 
The slave-holder was reminded that he was under a moral obli- 
gation to punish his slaves when they deserved punishment ; but 
he must not be too severe, nor chastise when in a passion ; nor 
ought he to overwork them. He is bound, moreover, to have the 
slave children baptized, and orally taught to say the Creed, the 
Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. " It is not neces- 
sary," said the man of God, " that they should be taught to read ; " 
but, nevertheless, the master was declared to be as respon- 
sible for the souls of his slaves as for those of his own children ! 
Such are the duties which spring from this Scriptural institu- 
tion ; duties which, fortunately for the master's convenience, 
involve no regard for the marriage of his slaves, no respect for 
their conjugal or parental rights, and impose no restrictions on 
the sale of men, women, and children in the market ; at least, no 
obligations of this sort were adverted to by the preacher. 

These two sermons certainly formed the most acceptable 
offering which any clergyman had yet laid on the altar of sla- 
very. The hints about the bondage of white men, the necessity 
of a new revelation, before slavery could be pronounced wrong, 
and the connection of religious duties with the institution, could 
not fail of convincing the slave-holder, that in the Episcopal 
CHURCn he would find an asylum from the taunts and reproaches 
of the civilized world ; that from her altars he could gather 
balm for his wounded conscience, and that in her courts, he 
could, without distraction, form his schemes of traffic in human 
beings, and forge the chains by which they were to be held in 
subjection. It was, of course, important that slave-holders gen- 
erally should participate in the joyful intelligence imparted to 



414 jay's works. 

the congregation of Christ Church. The news might be spread 
by the press, but what assurance could be given that the gratifying 
declarations made by Mr. Freeman, a private and obscure Pres- 
byter, were authorized by competent ecclesiastical authority ? 
The sermons were published under the imposing title of " The 
Rights and Duties of Slave-holders," and bore the follow- 
ing imprimatur from the Bishop of the Diocese : 

" Raleigh, Nov. 30, 1836. 

" Rev. and Dear Brother, — I listened with most unfeigned pleasure 
to the discourses delivered last Sunday, on the character of slavery 
and the duties of masters. And as I learn a publication of them is 
solicited, I beg, from a conviction of their being urgently called for 
at the present time, that you will not withhold your consent. 
" With high regard, your affectionate friend, 

and Brother in the Lord, 

"L. S.IVES. 
" To the Rev. George W. Freeman." 

This letter was obviously written, not for its professed pur- 
pose of overcoming Mr. Freeman's reluctance to appear in print, 
but to let the slave-holders of North Carolina know, that al- 
though their bishop was a northern man, his conscience was 
thoroughly acclimated ; and that bold and startling as were the 
doctrines of the Raleigh preacher, they would be maintained in 
all their length and breadth by Episcopal authority. The 
Church in North Carolina, by this authoritative publication, 
far exceeded all the " sects," in the slave region, in her fearless 
championship of slavery in the " abstract," and " as it exists at 
the present day." But the diocese was not permitted long to 
enjoy this proud preeminence. Her sister of South Carolina 
quickly shared it with her. The Society for " the Advancement 
of Christianity," (!) consisting of clergymen and laymen, with 
the Bishop at their head, seized upon Freeman's pamphlet, and 
reprinted it, imprimatur and all, as a religious tract for gratui- 
tous distribution. 

But there was still one circumstance, which, in times of alarm 
and despondency, was calculated to weaken the confidence of 
the slave-holder in the strength and permanency of the fortress 
which had thus kindly opened its gates to receive him. Most 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 415 

of the religious denominations of the South were connected with 
their northern brethren by general ecclesiastical judicatories. 
Already had alarming discussions occurred in the Presbyterian 
Assembly, and the Methodist Conference, and the Baptist Mis- 
sion Board, and it was painfully apparent that in these bodies 
" the rights and duties of slave-holders " were viewed in very 
different colors from the glowing tints in which Freeman had 
painted them. The Episcopal Church at the South was subject 
to the jurisdiction of the General Convention, and what 
security could be given that a body embracing northern as well 
as southern delegates, would not repudiate the doctrines of the 
Raleigh sermons ? Lynch law could indeed control the southern 
pulpit as well as the southern press ; but the consciences and 
the characters of the slave-holders were assailed from the North. 
There the Dissenters were gradually abandoning the cause of 
human bondage. Under the strong pressure of public opinion, 
and in utter contempt of the well-known sentiments of the 
Church of England, and indeed of the moral sense of Christen- 
dom, could it be hoped that the northern section of the Episco- 
pal Church would, in General Convention, tolerate, much less 
approve of the extreme, ultra pro-slavery views of the Rev. 
George TV. Freeman ? 

All questions of this sort were most explicitly answered by 
the last Convention, as appears by an extract from the minutes 
of the House of Clerical and Lay Delegates : 

"The following message was received: 'House of Bishops, Oct. 
22, 1844. The House of Bishops inform the House of Clerical and Lay 
Deputies, that they have nominated the Rev. George W. Fiieeman, 
D. D., rector of Immanuel Church, Delaware, a missionary Bishop, 
to exercise Episcopal functions in the State of Arkansas, and in the 
Indian Territory, south of 36 1-2 degrees of parallel of latitude, 
and to exercise Episcopal supervision over the Missions of the Church 
in the Republic of Texas. Attest, Jonathan M. Wainwri<dit, 
Sec'y.' ° ' 

" On motion of Rev. Dr. Tyng, the nomination of the Bishop of 
Arkansas and Texas (as above) was unanimously assented to." 

It was not enough thus to elevate the reckless defender of 
slavery to the high and holy office of a Bishop in the Church of 
God, but he must be selected as an apostle to Texas ! There 



416 jay's works. 

was, indeed, a peculiar significance in this selection. The odium 
in which the people of Texas were held by the Christian com- 
munity at large, arose not merely from their general profligacy, 
but also, and chiefly, from their conduct in relation to slavery. 
Taking possession of lands belonging to Mexico, they reestab- 
lished slavery upon the very soil from which it had been recently 
banished by that Roman Catholic government. To secure to 
themselves the unmolested enjoyment of their human chattels, 
they raised the standard of rebellion, and with the aid of south- 
ern slave-holders erected themselves into an independent Re- 
public. Having thus, as they professed, achieved their own 
liberty, they adopted a constitution rendering the bondage of 
others hopeless and perpetual ; and outraging alike the dictates 
of nature and of justice, ordained that no free mulatto should 
ever live in Texas, thus dooming their own colored offspring, 
for all time to come, to slavery or to exile ! 

The southern slave-holders were exceedingly anxious that 
Texas should be admitted into the Union, for the double purpose 
of strengthening the slave interest, and opening a new market 
for the benefit of the breeding States. For the same reasons, 
in addition to the odious character of the Texans, the proposed 
annexation was resisted by the almost united moral feeling of 
the whole North. The question of annexation was agitating the 
nation when the Convention assembled, and the selection of 
Freeman as Bishop of Texas was virtually, whether so intended 
or not, a repudiation by the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
General Convention assembled, of the moral objections urged 
against the admission of that Republic into our confederacy. 
The Church sent to the Texans a man who, she knew, would 
confirm and strengthen them by apostolic instruction and bene- 
diction in those great principles of their constitution, which had 
excited the execration of the Christian world. 

Let us now take a view of that institution, which, the Texan 
Bishop assures us, enjoys the approval of Christ and his Apostles. 
He tells us, 

" There -was in general no distinction of color, no prevailing differ- 
ence in the conformation of the featm-es and limbs, no striking dissimi- 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 417 

larity in the intellectual powers, to mark the line of separation between 
the masters and their bondmen, and stamp them as different races of 
men. No peculiarity of this kind existed which would have prevented 
those who were slaves, had they been placed in other circumstances, 
from taking rank in society, and looking forward to the highest dis- 
tinctions in the community. Had they not been slaves, they would 
have become magistrates, nobles, or rulers ; resj)ected by multitudes 
as equals, or venerated as superiors." 

Here, it will be observed, we have none of the usual nonsense 
about the curse of Canaan, nor of the usual blasphemy about 
negroes being created by God for slaves. Jesus Christ and his 
apostles approved of the bondage of white men as intelligent as 
their masters : and of course the whole of our present bench of 
Bishops, including Bishop Freeman himself, might, under certain 
circumstances, be lawfully reduced to slavery, and righteously 
held as chattels by Christian men. 

We are expressly referred in the sermons, to Roman slavery, 
as that which enjoyed the sanction of the great Head of the 
Church. And what was Roman slavery? Our answer to 
this question is taken from a very learned work, whose state- 
ments are all verified by references to Roman authorities.* 

" The slave had no protection against the avarice, rage, or lust of 
the master, whose authority was founded in absolute property ; and the 
bondman was viewed less as a human being subject to arbitrary domin- 
ion, than as an inferior animal, dependent wholly on the will of his 
owner. At first, the master possessed the uncontrolled power of life 
and death. He might kill, mutilate or torture his slaves, for any or no 
offence ; he might force them to become gladiators or prostitutes. 
The temporary unions of male with female slaves were formed and 
dissolved at his command ; families and friends were separated when 
he pleased. The laws recognized no obligation upon the owners of 
slaves, to furnish them with food and clothing, or to take care of them 
in sickness. Slaves could have no property but by the sufferance of 
their master, for whom they acquired everything, and with whom they 
could form no engagements which would be binding on him. The 
master might transfer his rights by either sale or gift, or might be- 
queathe them by will. A master selling, giving or bequeathing a slave, 
sometimes made it a provision that he should never be carried abroad, 
or that he should be manumitted on a fixed day ; or that, on the other 
hand, he should never be emancipated, or that he should be kept in 
chains for life. While slaves turned the handmill, they were generally 
chained, and had a broad wooden collar, to prevent them from eating 

*" Blair's Inquiry into the State of Slavery among the Romans, from the 
earliest period, to the establishment of the Lombards in Italy." 

36 



418 jay's works. 

the grain. The f urea, 'which in later language means a gibbet, was, in 
older dialect, used to denote a wooden fork or collar, which was made 
to bear irpon their shoulders or around their necks, as a mark of dis- 
grace as much as an uneasy burden. Fetters and chains were much 
used for punishment or restraint, and were, in some instances, worn 
by slaves during life, through the sole authority of the master. Porters 
of the gates of the rich were generally chained. Field laborers worked 
for the most part in irons posterior to the first ages of the Republic. 
Some persons made it their business to catch runaway slaves.* The 
runaway, when taken, was severely punished by authority of the master, 
or by the judge at his desire ; sometimes with crucifixion, amputation 
of a foot, or by being sent to fight as a gladiator with wild beasts ; but 
most frequently by being branded on the brow with letters indicative 
of his crime. Cruel masters sometimes hired torturers by profession, 
or had such persons in their establishments, to assist them in punishing 
their slaves. The noses, and ears, and teeth of slaves were otten in 
danger from an enraged owner ; and sometimes the eyes of a great 
offender were put out. Crucifixion was very frequently made the fate 
of a wretched slave for trifling misconduct, or from mere caprice. By 
a decree passed by the Senate, if a master was murdered, when his 
slaves might possibly have aided him, all his household within reach 
were held as implicated and deserving of death ; and Tacitus relates an 
instance in which a family of four hundred were all executed." 

Such was the slavery which the Bishop of Texas tells us was 
found " extensively established in the Roman Empire, embracing 
nearly all the civilized world, by our Saviour, when he appeared 
on earth ; and that neither he, nor his inspired apostles after 
him, ever expressed any disapprobation of it, or left on record a 
single precept directing its discontinuance ; and what then is the 
conclusion ? Why, surely this much, if nothing farther, that no 
man nor set of men in our day, unless they can produce A new 

REVELATION FROM HEAVEN ARE ENTITLED TO PRONOUNCE IT 






WRONG 



Let us next endeavor to acquire some idea of the number of 
the bondmen, whose prison-house, if we believe the Right Rev. 

* This profession is not unknown among ourselves, as appears from the 
following notice in the Sumner County (Alabama) Whig. 

"NEGRO DOGS. 

" The undersigned having bought the entire pack of Negro Dogs, (of the 
Hay and Allen stock,) he now proposes to catch runaway negroes. His 
charges will be Three Dollars per day for hunting, and Fifteen Dollars for 
catching a runaway. He resides three and one-half miles north of Livingston, 
near the lower Jones' Bluff road. WILLIAM GAMBEL. 

"Nov. 6, 1845— 6m." 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 419 

Texan Father in God, was barred and bolted by Him who gave 
his life a ransom for many. Gibbon estimates the whole slave 
population of the Roman Empire in the reign of the Emperor 
Claudius at sixty millions (I, 53), and Blair regards this 
estimate as much too small. 

It is important to ascertain how this prodigious multitude were 
reduced to bondage ; because as our spiritual champions of sla- 
very invariably omit to explain the scriptural process of con- 
verting free men into slaves, we are left to seek instruction in 
this branch of our duty from the Romans ; since, as in no one 
instance were the}'' rebuked by Christ and his apostles, for any 
of their various contrivances for manufacturing slaves, the con- 
clusion is, surely, " this much, if nothing further, that no man 
nor set of men in our day, unless they can produce a new reve- 
lation from Heaven, are entitled " to pronounce any of the Roman 
methods of making slaves, " wrong." 

The most prolific source of slavery was war. Livy informs 
us that after the fall of the Samnites at Aquilone, about 30,000 
prisoners were sold ; and Plutarch, that 150,000 of the people 
of Epirus were sold for the benefit of the army under Paulus 
jEmilius ; and we learn from Cicero, that when Pindenissus 
was taken, the inhabitants were made slaves. Hence, should a 
Mexican force hereafter make an hicursion into Texas, and 
carry oif the Bishop, his wife and children, and sell them to dif- 
ferent mastei's, under whom they should be compelled to spend 
their days in unceasing toil — condemned to all the misery and 
degradation of Roman bondmen, — the Bishop would have the 
consolation of knowing that the treatment he experienced was 
in perfect consistency with that Gospel which he had himself 
preached. 

Commerce was another mode of acquiring slaves. A pro- 
digious slave-trade was carried on in the countries bordering on 
the Euxine, with various Provinces in Asia, with Tbrace, and 
even with Spain and Great Britain. Here we learn how pre- 
sumptuous it is to denounce the African slave-trade as sinful. 

The Profession of Christianity was occasionally visited 



420 jay's works. 

by the Romans with slavery. At the present day, it affords no 
security against American slavery, nor deliverance from it. 

There were still four other modes of acquiring slaves, which 
are particularly interesting to us ; because, having been copied 
by us from the Roman law, we can have no scruples about their 
lawfulness : for had they been wrong, Christ and his apostles, 
according to Bishop Freeman, would have condemned them. 

1. The sale of children by their fathers. With us the privi- 
lege is confined to the sale of children by a slave mother. In 
the Bishop's Diocese, this privilege was nearly converted into a 
necessity, by the constitutional provision which required the 
bondage or expulsion of every mulatto child. 

2. Selling persons convicted of crimes. Among the Romans, 
persons convicted of certain offences were sold as slaves, and 
their posterity after them were doomed to bondage. Similar 
laws for converting free negroes and mulattoes into slaves are 
in force in several of our States. Thus, in South Carolina, if a 
free negro " entertains a runaway slave," he forfeits ten pounds ; 
and if, as must generally be the case, he cannot pay the fine, he 
is sold. In 1.827, a free woman and her two children were con- 
verted into slaves under this law, for sheltering two fugitive 
slave children ! 

3. Debtors sold by their creditors. By a law of the late ter- 
ritory of Florida, approved by Congress, (!) when a judgment 
obtained against a free colored person, shall remain unsatisfied 
for five days, such person shall be sold to raise money to pay the 
judgment. The sale was nominally for a term of years, but 
practically for life. 

4. Suspected fugitives were sold as slaves. This Roman 
device for procuring slaves is now in operation in the District 
of Columbia, under the immediate sanction of Congress, and in 
almost every slave State. The process is simple : A man who 
it is deemed ought to be a slave, is arrested on suspicion of being 
a runaway, and thrown into prison ; notice is then given in a 
newspaper to his supposed master, to come and claim him. If 
claimed, well ; if not, the prisoner is sold as a slave for life, to 
raise money to pay the expense of his imprisonment. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 421 

Having obtained some insight into Roman slavery, as it existed 
in the time of Christ and his apostles, and with their acquies- 
cence, let us next look at " slavery as it exists at the present 
day," and which the Bishop of Texas, with the concurrence of 
the Bishops of North and South Carolina, assures us, " is 

AGREEABLE TO THE ORDER OP DlVINE PROVIDENCE." 

What is American slavery ? Its advocates are fond of hiding 
its vileness under false definitions. It is not servitude — it is 
not compulsory labor — it is not arbitrary authority — it is not 
cruelty — it is not injustice — it is not oppression. These are, 
indeed, the usual accidents of slavery ; but they do not consti- 
tute it, and are daily, one and all, found in total separation from 
it. Slavery is the conversion of a rational, accountable, immor- 
tal being, made in the image of God and a little lower than the 
angels, and for whom Christ died, into a chattel, an article of 
property, a vendible commodity.* It is not the violation of cer- 
tain rights, but the annihilation of ALL.f It is the degradation 
of a man to the level of a brute. J Slavery involves the denial 
of all domestic relations, and consequently the refusal to afford 
them legal protection. § The infant slave may be sold or given 
away long before he sees the light, so that, at the instant of his 
birth, he belongs to one master and his mother to another. || A 

* " Slaves shall be deemed sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be 
chattels personal in the hands of their owners, and possessors, and their exec- 
utors and administrators, to all intents, constructions and purposes what- 
ever." Laic of South Carolina. 

f" A slave is one who is in the power of his master to whom he belongs. 
The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labor. 
He can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what belongs 
to his master." Civil Code of Louisiana. 

X " In case the personal property of a ward shall consist of specific articles, 
such as slaves, working beasts, animals of any kind, the court, if it deem it 
advantageous for the ward, may at any time pass an order for the sale there- 
of." Law of Mart/land. 

§ "With the consent of their masters, slaves may marry, and their moral 
power to agree to such a contract or connection as that of marriage, cannot 
be doubted ; but whilst in a state of slavery it cannot produce any civil effect, 
because slaves are deprived of all civil rights." Judge Mattheics, of Louisi- 
ana ; Martin's Rep. YI, 550. 

" A slave is never prosecuted for bigamy, or petty treason for killing a 
husband being a slave, any more than admitted to an appeal for murder." 
D. Dulanig, Attorney General of Maryland. 1 Md. Rep., 561. 

|| " The testator left his negro wench, Pen, to one daughter, and her future 
increase to another. The court decided the bequest to be good, and that all 

36» 



422 jay's works. 

slave can possess no property ; * nor is any promise to him, or 
agreement with him, binding in law.f Being under the control 
of his master, he can have no legal right to attend the worship 
of his Maker. j Like other chattels, he can obtain no legal 
redress for any injury, however grievous. § The master may 
indeed recover compensation from any one who damages or kills 
either his horse or his slave ; [| but the law refuses to notice 

the children born of Pen, after the death of the testator, belonged to the 
sister of her mistress. Per Cur. He who is the absolute owner of a thing, 
owns all its faculties for profits or irferease, as well as the thing itself. This 
is every day's practice ; and it is held that a man may grant the wool of a 
flock of sheep for years." Little's Rep., Ill, 275. Kentucky, 1823. 

* A master made a devise to trustees, for the benefit of his slave Betsey 
and her children. Devise held to be void. Per Cur. " The condition of 
slaves in this country is analogous to that of the ancient Greeks and Ro- 
mans, and not that of the feudal times. They are generally considered not 
as persons, but as things. They can be sold or transferred as goods or per- 
sonal estate ; they are held to be pro nullis, pro mortuis. By the civil law, 
slaves could not take property by descent or purchase ; and I apprehend this 
to be the law of this country." Dess. Rep. IV, 266. South Carolina. 

f Application to enforce a contract between master and slave. "Per Cur. 
In the case of Sawney vs. Carter, the court refused, on great consideration. 
to enforce a promise by a master to emancipate his slave, where the conditions 
of the promise had been partly complied with by the slave. The court pro- 
ceeded on the principle, that it is not competent to a Court of Chancery to 
enforce a contract between master and slave, even although the contract 
should be fully complied with on the part of the slave." Leigh's Rep., I, 72. 
Vig., 1829. 

X " 150 free negroes and slaves, belonging to the African Church, were taken 
up on Sunday afternoon by the city guard, and lodged in the guard-house. 
The City Council yesterday morning sentenced five of them, consisting of a 
Bishop and four ministers, to one month's imprisonment, or to give security 
to leave the State. Eight other ministers were also sentenced separately to 
receive ten lashes, or pay a fine each of five dollars." Charleston Patriot, 
1818. 

Those whose punishment is here recorded were free negroes; and from 
their fate, we may judge of the religious privileges of the slaves. 

$ " It would be an idle form and ceremony to make a slave a party to a suit, 
by the instrumentality of which he could recover nothing ; or if a recovery 
could be had, the instant it was recovered, it would belong to the master. The 
slave can possess nothing, he can hold nothing. He is, therefore, not a com- 
petent party to a suit." Wheeler's Treatise on the Law of Slavery, p. 197. 

|| " Trespass for killing plaintiff's slave. It appeared the slave was stealing 
potatoes from a bank near defendant's house. The defendant fired upon him 
with a gun loaded with buck-shot, and killed him. The jury found a verdict 
for plaintiff for one dollar. Motion for new trial. The court hold there 
must be a new trial ; that the jury ought to have given the plaintiff the value 
of the slave. That if the jury were of opinion the slave was of bad charac- 
ter, some deduction from the usual price ought to be made ; but the plaintiff 
was certainly entitled to his actual damage for killing his slave. Where 
property is in question, the value of the article, as nearly as can be ascertain- 
ed, furnishes a rule from which they are not at libertv to depart." M' Cord's 
Rep., IV, 156. South Carolina, 1827. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHT7RCH. 423 

any insult or outrage offered to male or female slaves, which 
does not lesson their price in the market.* The whole life of a 
slave is appropriated hy the master, and no portion of it belong? 
to himself, to be occupied in promoting his own happiness, or 
that of his offspring.! 

* " There must be a loss of service, or at least a diminution of the faculty 
of the slave for bodily labor, to warrant an action by the master." Harris 
and Johnson's Rep., I, 4. Maryland. 

f " The defendant was indicted for an assault and battery upon Lydia, the 
slave of one Elizabeth Jones. On the trial, it appeared that the defendant 
had hired the slave for a year ; that during the term, the slave had committed 
some small offence, for which the defendant undertook to chastise her ; that 
while in the act of so doing, the slave ran off, whereupon the defendant called 
upon her to stop, which being refused, he shot at and wounded her. The 
defendant was found guilty, and appealed. Per Cur. Ruffin, J. The in- 
quiry here is, whether a cruel and unreasonable battery on a slave by the 
hirer is indictable. ... In criminal proceedings, and indeed in refer- 
ence to all other persons but the general owner, the hirer and possessor of a 
slave, in relation to both rights and duties, is, for the time being, the owner. 
. . . . Upon the general question whether the owner is answerable crim- 
inaliter for a battery upon his own slave, or other exercise of authority or 
force not forbidden by statute, the court entertains but little doubt. That he 
is so liable has never been decided, nor, as far as is known, been hitherto con- 
tended. The established habits and uniform practice of the country, in this 
respect, are the best evidence of the portion of power deemed by the whole 
community requisite to the preservation of the master's dominion. This 
has, indeed, been assimilated at the bar to the other domestic relations, and 
arguments drawn from the well-established principles which confer and 
restrain the authority of the parent over the child, the tutor over the pupil, 
the master over the apprentice, have been pressed on us. The court does 
not recognize their application. There is no likeness between the cases. 
They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between 
them. The difference is that which exists between freedom and slavery ; and 
a greater cannot be imagined. In the one, the end in view is the happiness 
of the youth, born to equal rights with the governor on whom devolves the 
duty of training the young to usefulness, in a station which he is hereafter 
to assume among freemen. To such an end, and with such a subject, moral 
and intellectual instruction seems the natural means, and for the most part, 
it is found to suffice ; moderate force is only superadded to make the 
others effectual. If that fail, it is better to leave the party to his own head- 
strong passions and the ultimate correction of the law, than to allowitto be 
immoderately inflicted by a private person. With slavery it is far otherwise. 
'The end is the profit of the master, his security and the public peace. The 
subject is one doomed in his own person and in his posterity, to live without 
knowledge, and without capacity to make anything his own, and to toil that 
others may reap the fruits. 

" What moral considerations shall be addressed to such a being to convince 
him, what it is impossible but that the most stupid must feel and know can 
never be true, that he is thus to labor upon a principle of natural duty, or 
for the sake of his own personal happiness ? Such services can only be ex- 
pected from one who has no will of his own, who surrenders his will in explicit 
obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the consequence only of 
uncontrolled authority over the body. There is nothing else which can operate 
to produce the effect. The power of the master must be absolute, to render 
the submission of the slave perfect. I most freely confess my sense of the 
harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man can. And as 
a principle of moral right, every person in his retirement must repudiate it. 



424 jay's works. 

Such is American slavery, not as abused by the cruel and the 
lawless, but as established by legislative enactments and main- 
tained by judicial decisions. Such is the slavery which George 
W. Freeman, as minister of the Most High God, declares to be 
" agreeable to the order of Divine Providence." 

Such is the slavery, to the defence of which in God's house 
on his holy day, the Right Rev. Father in God, Levi S.» Ives, 
listened with " most unfeigned pleasure." Such is the slavery, 
whose vindication the churchmen of South Carolina spread on 
the wings of the wind, for " the advancement of Christianity." 
And shall there not be a woe now, as in ancient times, " unto 
them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for 
light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet 
for bitter ? " The guilt of such clerical champions of slavery as 
Bishops Ives and Freeman, is tremendously aggravated by their 
personal knowledge of its unutterable abominations. The de- 
cision of Judge Ruffin, quoted in the notes, was delivered in 
Bishop Ives's Diocese, and in which Freeman delivered his no- 
torious sermons. Only jive days after the latter had declared 
from the pulpit of Raleigh, that " slavery as it exists at the 
present day is agreeable to the order of Divine Providence," the 
following comment appeared in the Newbern (N. C.) Spectator : 

" $200 Reward. — Ran away from the subscriber about three years 
ago, a certain negro man named Ben, commonly known by the name 
of Ben Fox. He had but one eye. Also, one other negro by the name 
of Rigdon, who ran away on the 8th of this month. I will give the 
reward of one hundred dollars for each of the above negroes, to be de- 
livered to me, or confined in the jail of Lenoir or Jones County, or for 

THE KILLING OF TUEM, SO THAT I CAN SEE THEM. 

W. D. Cobb." 

And now does the reader imagine Mr. Cobb some horrible 
wretch, who thus publicly offers money for the blood of the in- 

But in the actual condition of things, it must be so. There is no remedy. 
This discipline belongs to slavery." The State, vs. Mann, Dev. Rep. ; p. 
263. North Carolina, 1829. 

And so it was decided, that a master or his locum tenons may, with legal 
impunity, shoot a woman if she will not stand still to be flogged ! It is 
pleasing to see that this judge, while upholding the essential discipline of 
slavery, is too honest to wait for a new revelation from Heaven to pronounce 
it wrong ; and they who profess to believe it right, insult the moral sense of 
mankind, and lie to their own consciences. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 425 

nocent, for even Judge Ruffin admits that no principle of natural 
duty requires the slave to toil for his master ? Mr. Cobb may 
be a very reputable churchwarden, vestryman, or communicant 
of the Church in Newbern. He is a law-abiding citizen, and has 
acted in strict accordance with " slavery as it exists at the pres- 
ent day," and of coui-se" agreeably with the order of Divine Prov- 
idence.'' Before he thus compassed the death of two of his 
fellow-men, he obtained, and published in the same paper with 
his advertisement, the following proclamation, viz. : 

" "We do hereby, by virtue of an Act of the Assembly of this State, 
concerning servants and slaves, intimate and declare if the said slaves 
(Ben and xUgdon) do not surrender themselves, and return home im- 
mediately after the publication of these presents, that any person may 
kill and destroy said slaves, by such means as he or they may think 
Jit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for so doing, or 
without incurring any penalty or forfeiture thereby. 

" Given under our hands and seals, this 12th November, 1836. 

B. Coleman, J. P. 
Jas. Jones, J. P." 

It may, indeed, be said that this proclamation of the two jus- 
tices of the peace is an idle mockery, first, because the slaves 
are by law incapacitated from reading it, and secondly, because 
it assigns no time for their return, and of course, that they might 
legally be flayed alive an hour after the proclamation was issued. 
But what is all this to Mr. Cobb ? He has strictly pursued the 
course pointed out by law for murdering slaves in Bishop Ives's 
Diocese. 

Again, the Wilmington (same diocese) Advertiser of July 
13, 1838, has the following : 

" Run away, my negro man Richard. A reward of $25 will be 
paid for his apprehension, dead or alive. Satisfactory proof will only 
be required of his being killed. Durant H. Rhodes." 

Mr. Rhodes, it must be admitted, is more confiding in human 
nature than Mr. Cobb. The latter would only pay his money, 
after beholding with his own eyes the dead bodies of his slaves ; 
whereas, Mr. Rhodes is contented with satisfactory proof that 
his man Richard has been slaughtered. 

We will give one more instance of the taste, feelings, and 



426 jay's works. 

morality, springing from slavery in the Bishop's Diocese, ex- 
tracted from the North Carolina Standard of July 18, 1838, 
published at Raleigh, the residence of the Bishop, and very 
probably honored by his constant perusal. 

" Twenty Dollars Reward. — Ran away from the subscriber, a 
negro woman and two children. The woman is tall and black, and a 
few days before she went off, I burnt her with a hot iron on the left side 
of her face. I tried to make the letter M, and she kept a cloth over 
head and face, and a fly bonnet on her head, so as to cover the burn. 
Her children, &c. Micajah Ricks." 

It is utterly impossible that the southern clergy, in pleading 
for the continuance of slavery, should not be conscious that they 
are pleading for the continued ignorance, wretchedness, and 
heathenism of millions of their fellow-men.* 

Of the necessary heathenism of slavery, little need be said. 
There may indeed be slaves who are Christians, but they are 
extraordinary exceptions from the system. Can Christianity 
take root and flourish where every religious privilege depends on 
the will of an arbitrary and often Godless master? — where the 
conjugal and paternal relations are unacknowledged, and in prac- 
tice unrespected? — where the avenues to knowledge are closed, 
and ignorance enforced, and where the very ministers of Christ 
are justly regarded by the slaves as in league with their oppres- 
sors ? It is, moreover, utterly impossible that competent religious 
instruction can be afforded to the slaves, without at the same 
time imparting to them sufficient intelligence to endanger the 
whole system. Give to the slaves the means of becoming Chris- 
tians, and you render them both useless and formidable to their 
masters. "What ! shall a slave be enabled to contemplate the 
mysteries of redemption, and yet not understand the iniquity of 
his own bondage ? Shall his heart glow with love for his Saviour, 
and yet shall he be made to believe that that Saviour approves 
the cruelty and injustice of which he is daily the victim ? Shall 

* De Tocqueville describes the slave code as "legislation stained by unpar- 
alleled atrocities ; a despotism directed against the human mind. Legislation 
which forbids the slaves to be taught to read or write; and which aims to 
sink them as nearly as possible to the level of the brutes." But De Tocque- 
ville is a French Philosophe. "We are not aware that any minister of the 
Church, in the slave States, has declared this legislation to be sinful. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 427 

he be taught, as Bishop Freeman advises, to say the ten com- 
mandments, and not perceive that nearly the whole decalogue is 
violated in his own person ? The Bishop says he must also learn 
his catechism. If he understands it, with what bitter scorn will 
he repeat, that it is his duty "not to covet or desire other men's 
goods, but to learn and labor truly to get his own living," recol- 
lecting that he is himself robbed, and with the consent and ap- 
probation of his spiritual teacher, of every product of his own 
labor, and that the only possible means whereby he can get his 
own living, is by escaping from the house of bondage ! * 

One of the " duties of slave-holders " is to have slave children 
baptized. It is to be hoped, for the sake of decency, that the 
address to sponsors will on such occasions be omitted, as it would 
be trifling with sacred things to tell the chattel parents or friends, 
that they must call upon the child as he grows up to hear ser- 
mons, and take care that he be brought to the Bishop for con- 
firmation ; since if either the sponsors or the child attempt to 
leave the plantation without their master's permission, they may 
legally be shot, and will certainly be scourged. It is, moreover, 
scarcely reverent to assure these sponsors, to whom the Word of 
God is a sealed book, and who have, and can have nothing of 
their own, that is their duty to provide that the little article of 
merchandise be taught " all which a Christian ought to know 
and believe to his soul's health." 

Bishop Freeman is prudently silent on the subject of slave 
marriages. Surely a minister of the Church must have a front 
of bronze to use " the form of matrimony " in connecting two 
slaves. To make persons who are vendible commodities, and 

* For these or other reasons, Bishop Ives has himself constructed a cate- 
chism, whose admirable qualities he thus describes : "The plainness of its 
directions enables any person to apply it. If our planters, therefore, under 
a sense of their solemn responsibility to God for the Christian instruction of 
their slaves, would adopt it, and see to its faithful inculcation, the next gen- 
eration of blacks in our State, at a very small expense, would sufficiently un- 
derstand the truth as it is in Jesus, "without knowing a letter of the al- 
phabet." Spirit of Missions, Nov. 1842. 

There are in the Bishop's diocese, as appears by the last census, 209,783 
free white persons over twenty years of age. Of these, 56,609, or nearly one- 
third, cannot read or write. Hence, the next generation of whites in North 
Carolina may be equally indebted with the blacks, to this catechism, for their 
knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. And yet there may be doubts of the 
efficiency of this labor-saving machine, seeing it is to be applied by slave- 
holders, so many of whom do not themselves know a letter of the alphabet. 



428 jay's works. 

who can never spend an hour together without the permission of 
one, and often of two masters, vow, in the presence of Almighty 
God, to cleave to each other in riches and in poverty, in sickness 
and in health, till parted by death, is but solemn mockery. The 
priestly prohibition, " Those whom God has joined together, let 
not man put asunder," is, moreover, not merely in utter contempt 
of the laws of the land, but at war with the very existence of 
slavery. If the husband and wife may not be separated at the 
will of their owners, and according to the state of the market, 
what becomes of property in man ? 

As the House of Bishops, in their selection of Dr. Freeman, 
gave their implied sanction to American slavery, it might be 
well for them in their next pastoral letter to determine how far, 
and under what circumstances, the Church allows a slave a 
plurality of wives. This is the more necessary, as the " sects " 
are beginning to legislate upon the subject, since the civil power 
in this particular gives him unbounded liberty. A reverend 
Professor of the Methodist Church has decided that it is perfectly 
lawful for an owner to separate husband and wife, and that if 
there be any sin in the case, it rests upon the shoulders of the 
slaves, who ought not to have taken vows which their condition 
disqualifies them from keeping. A Baptist association in Vir- 
ginia have granted permission to a slave member to take a sec- 
ond wife, his first having been sold into another part of the 
country ; and another association in Georgia is reported to have 
voted, that a separation of man and wife, by sale or hire, to such 
a distance as precludes personal intercourse, is considered by 
God as equivalent to death.* 

One of the blessed objects for which God instituted marriage, 
was the care and instruction of the young ; and hence the in- 
junction, " Parents, bring up your children in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord." But slave children, as we have seen, 
may be sold or given away before their birth, and are the sub- 
jects of traffic at an early age. For this and other reasons, the 

* Professor E. A. Andrews, in his letter on " Slavery and the Domestic 
Slave-Trade, " relates that a slave, complaining to him that his wife's master 
was about selling her, remarked, " This is my third wife ; both the others 
were sold to the speculators." 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 429 

religious education of slaves is, with rare exceptions, wholly out 
of the question. On the whole, slavery and heathenism are, in 
the general, indissolubly connected ; and Jesus Christ, in approv- 
ing of the one, consented that millions for whom he died should 
become the victims of the other ! 

Of the rights of property, none are more obvious and indis- 
putable than that of buying and selling. Hence the advocates 
of the African slave-trade in the British Parliament most con- 
sistently rested the justification of the commerce on the right- 
eousness of slavery itself. Not a clerical champion of " slavery 
as it exists at present," questions the moral right 

" To gauge and span, 
And buy the muscles and the bones of man." 

And now we call upon our Bishops, either to disabuse the 
public mind as to the alleged iniquity of the African slave-trade, 
or else to show from Scripture, that while it is very wicked to 
buy a savage in Africa and sell him in Cuba, it is a lawful act 
to buy a fellow-countryman, and possibly a fellow-Christian in 
North Carolina, and sell him in New Orleans.* 

* Bishop Ives's diocese is one of thegreat breeding districts in which hu- 
man cattle are raised for the Southern market. As a specimen of the style 
in which the correspondence of gentlemen engaged in this commerce is con- 
ducted, we give a letter from a North Carolina merchant to his consignee, at 
New Orleans : 

"Halifax, N. C, Nov. 1G, 1839. 

Dear Sir — I have shipped in the brig Addison — prices are below — 

No. 1. Caroline Enais, #650 

" 2. Silvy Holland, 625 

" 3. Silvy Booth, 487.50 

" 4. Maria Pollock, 475 

" 5. Emeline Pollock, 475 

" 6. DeliaAverit, 475 

The two girls that cost #650 and #625, were bought before I shipped my 
first. I have a great many negroes offered to me, but I will not pay the prices 
they ask, for I know they will come down. I have no opposition in market. 
I will wait until I hear from you before I buy, and then I can judge what I 
must pay. Goodwin will send you the bill o"f lading for my negroes, as he 
shipped them with his own. Write often, as the times are critical, and it 
depends on the prices you get, to govern mc in buying. Yours, &c. 

Mr. Theophilus Freeman, ) G. "W. Barnes." 

New Orleans. ) 

The above was a small but choice invoice of wives and mothers. Nine 
days before, viz., Nov. 7, Mr. Barnes advised Mr. Freeman of having 

37 



430 jay's works. 

Again, as God approved of the bondage of white men, would 
it not be a laudable enterprise to enlarge the assortments in our 
slave-markets, by the importation of Russian serfs ? If the 
reduction of millions of the human race to the condition of mere 
chattels be consistent with the will of God, then, inasmuch as 
the greater includes the less, who shall say that every minor 
form of oppression is not equally agreeable to the common 
Father of mankind ? 

" Slavery," says Wilberforce, is " a system of the grossest 
injustice, of the most heathenish irreligion and immorality, of 
the most unprecedented degradation and unrelenting cruelty." 
Yet of this system the Episcopal Church is a mighty buttress, 
and certain of her bishops its reckless and unblushing champi- 
ons. But could the united logic and eloquence of the whole 
House of Bishops persuade the mother, as she bends with delight 
over the infant cherub in the cradle, that the compassionate Re- 
deemer, who took little children into his arms and blessed 
them, has given his consent that the child of her love, the object 
of her hopes and prayers, should be torn from her embraces, 
and sold in the market to the highest bidder, to put money in 

shipped a lot of forty-three men and women. Mr. Freeman, informing one of 
his correspondents of the state of the market, writes (Sunday, Sept. 21, 
1839), " I bought a boy yesterday 16 years old, and likely, weighing 110 pounds, 
at #700. I sold a likely girl, 12 years old, at #500. I bought a man yester- 
day, 20 years old, six feet high, at #820; one to-day, 24 years old, at #850, 
black and sleek as a mole." 

And are these brokers in human flesh, these butchers of human hearts, 
bad men ? For aught that appears, they are as sound Churchmen, and as 
heavenly-minded Christians, except in trading in negroes on Sunday, as 
Bishops Ives and Freeman themselves ; they are but reducing to practice 
the doctrines taught by these Right Reverend Fathers. If slavery be right, 
we must indeed wait for a new revelation before we pronounce the slave-trade 
wrong. No doubt the trade occasions painful separations, but the rights of 
property are paramount to the feelings of nature. The Presbyterian Synod of 
Kentucky, some time since, published an address, in which they thus noticed 
the domestic slave-trade : " The members of a slave family may (by law) be 
forcibly separated, so that they shall never more meet again till the final 
judgment. And cupidity often induces the masters to practise what the law 
allows. Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are 
torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. These acts are daily 
occurring in the midst of us. There is not a neighborhood where these heart- 
rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road that does 
not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, where chains and mourn- 
ful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that their hearts 
hold dear." And the Synod speak of the iniquity of the system! But why 
is it more iniquitous to fetter slaves than any other animals that we send to 
market ? Why more cruel to separate a child than a calf from its mother ? 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CIIURCH. 431 

the pocket of another ? * Let the experiment be made, and if 
that mother be a Christian, she will thank God that she knows 
and loves her Saviour too well to believe such a blasphemy. 

And by what process do our masters in Israel justify Ameri- 
can slavery? Do they show its accordance with the divine 
attributes — with the spirit of the Gospel — with the cultivation 
of holiness — with the glory of God — with individual happiness 
and national prosperity? Oh, no — they appeal to Hebrew 
servitude, and to a few insulated texts in the New Testament. 

There is something appalling in the passionate eagerness with 
which certain ministers of Christ rush forward to lay the blessed 
Scriptures upon the altar of the southern Moloch. "We wish to 
do these men no injustice, and therefore frankly admit, that some 
persons may honestly find themselves embarrassed in their 
endeavors to reconcile certain texts with the obvious cruelty and 
injustice of human bondage ; and we as frankly confess that we 
shudder at the very idea of one who professes himself called by 
the Holy Ghost as a preacher of righteousness, teaching his 
people that American slavery, slavery as it exists in North 
Carolina, is not " wrong." 

The moral sense of every man, when not perverted by pecu- 
niary interest, education, or authority, is itself sufficient to con- 
vince him of the iniquity of slavery. The Christian student, 
therefore, who commences the Scriptural examination of this 
subject with an unclouded judgment, will come to his work with 
a firm conviction, that every attribute of slavery is opposed to 
the spirit of the Gospel. Hence, he would be restrained from 
promptly pronouncing slavery unscriptural only by a painful 
suspicion that certain passages in the Bible lent it their sanction. 
He would, however, call to mind that there were some things in 
Scripture confessedly " hard to be understood," and he would 
cherish the hope that he did not rightly understand those which 
apparently contradicted the character of God and the general 
precepts of his Word. He would, therefore, search the Scrip- 
tures, not to find a warrant for slavery, but to reconcile certain 

* Benjamin Davis, a slave-trader in Hamburg, S. C, advertised in the 
Charleston papers, for sale, " small boys without theik mothebs." 



432 jay's works. 

obscure texts with the love and holiness which beam from every 
page. 

If the patriarchs did, indeed, as is said, hold slaves, he would 
recollect that they also indulged in polygamy, and were, in sev- 
eral instances, guilty of falsehood.* 

* It is not our purpose to enter at large into the Bible argument, but mere- 
ly to suggest some reasons why they who think American slavery " wrong," 
are not necessarily impugners of " Revelation." It might be inferred from 
the confidence and evident delight with which the example of Abraham is 
urged in vindication of our "domestic institution," that the father of the 
faithful was also the father of all who traffic in human flesh. If he was, 
indeed, a slave-holder, he was still very far from being the type of a Southern 
planter. While childless, he designated one of his slaves as his future heir. 
He was afterwards prevented, only by Divine appointment, from making the 
son of the bondwoman heir with the son by promise, and was consoled by 
the assurance that the former should become the father of princes, and the 
founder of a great nation. He moreover entrusted to one of his slaves, the 
selection of a wife for his favorite son. The three hundred and eighteen 
servants "born in his house," the Bishop of Texas asserts were "slaves." 
Still they were men whom he armed and led to battle. They, with their 
parents, brothers, sisters, wives and children, must have formed a " gang " 
of about two thousand in number. Yet we find the master of this multitude 
of slaves leaving his guests to catch a calf to provide dinner for them, while 
the mistress of this goodly household occupied herself in kneading and 
baking cakes for her company ! A pro-slavery theory can alone blind us to 
the evidence afforded by these facts ; that Abraham was the chief of a clan 
or tribe, and that the expression, " born in his own house," only indicates 
that the three hundred and eighteen were not strangers whom he employed 
on the occasion, but members of the community acknowledging him as its 
head. 

That there was a species of servitude in the East at an early period, as at 
present, is true ; it is also true that it was of a very different character from 
that which prevailed in the West. Our slavery belongs to the Western sys- 
tem. In a late work on Egypt, by ..Clot Bey, the distinction between the two 
systems is thus noticed : "There is a prodigious difference between American 
slavery, and servitude among the Orientals. With them, the institution is 
neither cruel or disgraceful. It does not regard the slave as a thing, a mate- 
rial object, as did the Roman law. It does not make him a mere article of 
import or export, a matter of speculation, a simple machine, in fact, whose 
efficiency is estimated as horse power. The West Indian regards in the negro 
only his corporeal value, and forgets in him the intellectual man ; he robs 
him of his nature. The Mussulman, on the contrary, always beholds a man 
in his slave, and treats him in such a manner, that we may say of Oriental 
slavery, that it is often a real adoption, and always an admission into an ex- 
tended family circle. 

" Oriental servitude honorably contrasts with our slavery, and above all by 
its respect for the dignity of human nature. The slave, in Turkey, is not 
humiliated by his condition : he often proudly boasts that he is of the family 
of such a Bev, or such a Pasha, and gives his master the title of father. He 
knows, moreover, that he is not bound for ever to his station by a chain of 
iron. He has before him examples sufficient to raise his ambition, and to 
swell his soul with the hope of more brilliant destinies." The author then 
gives various instances of slaves who had risen to high dignities ; and men- 
tions two sons-in-law of the present Sultan, who had both been slaves, and 
adds, " In Egypt, the superior officers are, for the most part, manumitted 
slaves." See Apercu general sar UEqypte, par A. B. Clot Bey, 1840. Tom. 
i, p. 269. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 433 

If the Jews were, indeed, allowed to buy slaves of the heathens 
around them, we must recollect that they were also allowed, nay, 
even commanded to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan, men, 
women and children ; and slavery was but a commutation of 
the punishment of death to which God had sentenced them for 
their sins. Such examples are not precedents for us under the 
Gospel dispensation without a special warrant. But is it cer- 
tain that the " bondmen " (so called by our translators, but not 
distinguished in the original from servants*) were slaves ? If so, 
they were the property of their masters. Now, how was their 
property acquired? The heathen around, even their very 
infants, might be slaughtered, but " He that stealeth a man and 
selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put 
to death." Hence the Jewish slaves were to be purchased, but 
of whom ? If the slave-trade constituted part of the Jewish 
commerce, strange it is that we hear nothing of the slave market 
in Israel. We know that the Jews sold themselves. " If a so- 
journer or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that 
dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or 
sojourner by thee," &c. Hence it is possible that as poor Jews 
sold themselves to rich strangers, poor strangers might sell 
themselves to rich Jews. There is no evidence that the heathen 
in Palestine had slaves to sell, but many among them might find 
it convenient to enter into Jewish families as domestics. The 
servitude of both Jewish and heathen servants seems to have 
been limited to the year of Jubilee. That this servitude was 
not founded on the idea of property appears from the prohibition* 
" Thou shalt not deliver unto his master, the servant which is 
escaped from his master to thee" (Deut. xxiii, 15). This law, 
whether the fugitive was a Jew or a heathen, is utterly irrecon- 
cilable with common honesty, supposing the servant to have 

* " The word in the original, sometimes rendered bondman, and sometimes 
servant, is Obcd. It is applied to Christ, " Behold my servant whom 1 up- 
hold," Isaiah, xxiv, 1. It is applied to King Rehoboam, 1 Kings, xn, 7. 
Ziba, Saul's Obcd, had himself twenty Obeds, 2 Samuel, ix, 10. There is no 
word in Hebrew for slave, as distinct from servant. We find, 1 Chron. n, <J4, 
that Sheshan, the head of one of the families of the tribe of Judah, gave his 
daughter to wife, to his servant, an Egyptian ; and so far was any disgrace 
attached in consequence to their children, that the son of this very daughter 
was enrolled among " the valiant men " of David's army, 1 Chron. U, 41. 

37* 



434 jay's works. 

been a mere chattel ; and certainly belonged to a very different 
code of morals from that which enjoins, "If thou meet thy 
enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it 
back to him again." 

On turning to the New Testament, our inquirer would recollect, 
that it was written at a time, when, among the Romans, slavery 
and the exhibitions of the amphitheatre were systems of extraor- 
dinary cruelty and of human butchery, and that, although both 
are alluded to, neither is expressly condemned. True it is, that 
St. Paul induced a servant to return to his master. If the ser- 
vant was a freeman, the case proves nothing. If he was a slave, 
the apostle required his instant manumission, by commanding 
the master to receive him, " Not now as a servant, but above a 
servant, a brother beloved ; receive him as myself." * 

There are instances in which persons, who perhaps held 
slaves, are spoken of with commendation, but not on that account. 
None of the churches or individuals commended in the apostolic 
epistles were faultless, and it would be most monstrous to infer 
from a general commendation, an apostolic sanction of every 
error or sin of which they might be guilty. 

Were it possible to imagine a kind of slavery divested of all 
sinful attributes, and consistent alike with the glory of God and 
the good of man, Bishops Freeman and Ives well know that 
such is not the character of American slavery. If " slavery as 
it exists at present," in the Dioceses of these two Bishops, is 
indeed acceptable to Him who proclaims himself, " The Lord, 
the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abun- 
dant in goodness and truth," then, indeed, is the Bible a riddle, 
and its morality a paradox. Be it so ; a title to negro slaves 
must at all hazards be found in the Bible. The very character 
of the Southern priesthood for honesty depends on its production. f 
What is wanting in proof, must be supplied by bold assertion, 

* St. Paul wrote by Onesimus to the Church at Colossc, and in his Epistle 
speaks of him as " a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you," Col. 
iv, 9. 

f The clergy of the South, of all denominations, are generally slave-holders. 
A member of the House of Bishops is said, in a late western newspaper, to 
own one hundred and seventy slaves. 



REPROOF OP THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 435 

and all Christendom beyond the slave-region shall be accused of 
presumption, for not waiting for a new revelation, before they 
dare to pronounce such slavery as exists in North Carolina 
wrong ! 

And shall we be any longer insulted with the assertion, that 
the preached Gospel is the divinely appointed means of abolish- 
ing slavery ? Most certain it is, that the spirit of the Gosjiel, 
carried into universal practice, would relieve the human family 
from every moral evil with which it is afflicted ; but it is utterly 
false that the ministrations of our own, or any other Church, will 
correct a single vice, independent of the character of its ministers, 
the examples they set, and the doctrines they preach. Would 
the teachings of a thousand Dr. Freemans loosen the fetters of 
a single slave ? No less than forty missionaries are supported 
by our Board of Missions in the slave regions. Dare we hope 
they have induced one master to let his bondmen go free? 
"While the southern clergy vindicate slavery as a Christian insti- 
tution, they are in danger of producing a result which they as 
little expect as desire. " Should the priesthood," says a south- 
ern writer, once himself a slave-holder, " should the priesthood 
succeed in convincing the world that slavery is the doctrine of 
the New Testament, then will infidelity become the true 
religion of mankind — and not till then." Says another south- 
ern writer, and apparently a pious Christian, " I distinctly avow, 
than when I can be brought to believe that American slavery, 
taken as a system, is sustained by the teachings of Holy Writ, I 
must cease to be a believer in the Bible." 

But, blessed be God ! his priesthood has, in all ages of the 
Church, afforded the most glorious illustrations of fearless devo- 
tion to duty, and of self-denying benevolence, that the world has 
ever witnessed. While some have claimed to hold their slaves 
as monarchs their crowns, " by the grace of God," many have 
witnessed a good confession against human bondage. In the 
Church of England at the present day, there is not probably a 
bishop, priest, or deacon, who would endorse the theology of our 
Texan bishop. But then we are told by the slave-holders, and 
their tools, the northern demagogues, that England is anti-slavery 



436 JAY'S WORKS. 

through envy of our prosperity ! Let us, then, hear the English 
bishops, when such a motive could have no existence. 

Bishop Warburton, in a sermon preached in 1776 against 
slavery and the slave-trade, exclaims, 

" Gracious God ! to talk, as in herds of cattle, of property in rational 
creatures — creatures endowed with all our faculties, possessing all our 
qualities but that of color — our brethren both by nature and grace, 
shocks all the feelings of humanity and the dictates of common sense. 
Nature created man free, and grace invites him to assert his freedom." 

Bishop Burgess, in a pamphlet against the slave-trade, 

1789, says : 

" Such oppression (West India slavery) and such traffic must be 
swept away at one bloio. Such horrid offences against God and nature 
can admit of no medium. If no British subject is exempt from the 
duty of doing everything in his place towards preventing the continu- 
ance of so great a political as well as moral evil, more especially are not 
those subjects, whose business it is to teach what is every man's concern 
to know, the interpreters of God's Word, which is so frequently violated 
by West India slavery and its consequences." 

Bishop Porteus declared in the House of Lords, 1806, in 
answering certain Scriptural arguments in behalf of slavery, 
" There was no such thing as perpetual slavery under the Old 
or New Testament ; " and he showed that all Hebrew servants 
were set at liberty every seventh year, and all others at the 
Jubilee. 

The Bishop of St. Asaph, the same year, asserted in the 
House of Lords, that 

" The principle of perpetual slavery is totally inconsistent with the 
Jewish law. When we come down to Christianity, we find dealers in 
slaves are held among the worst of the human race. St. Paul, in his 
Epistle to Timothy, tells us what the dealers in slaves are, and who are 
their companions. The slave-dealers are called 'stealers of men,' and 
their companions are liars, perjurers, murderers, and parricides." 

Bishop Horsely, in 1799, with Christian boldness, rebuked 
the nobles of Britain for their wicked toleration of the slave- 
trade ; and vindicated the Gospel of Christ from the aspersions 
of those who represented it as a shield for cruelty and injustice. 
After showing that the " men-stealers " classed in the Bible 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 437 

with murderers of fathers and of mothers, were in fact, according 
to the true meaning of the Greek word, " slave-traders," he pro- 
ceeded : 

" "VVe have reason to conclude, from the mention of ' slave-traders,' 
by St. Paul, that if any of them should ever find their way to heaven, 
they must go thither in company with murderers and parricides. My 
lords, I do certainly admit that there is no prohibition of slavery in the 
Bible, in explicit terms, such as these words, ' thou shalt not have a slave,' 
or ' thou shalt not hold any one in slavery.' There is no explicit 
reprobation of slavery by name. My lords, if I were to say there was 
no occasion for any such prohibition, because slavery is condemned by 
something anterior to either the Christian or the Mosaic dispensation, I 
could support the assertion by grave authorities. Beware, my lords, 
how you are persuaded to bring under the opprobrious name of fanat- 
icism the regard you owe to the great duties of justice and mercy, for 
the neglect of which, if you should neglect them, you will be answera- 
ble to that tribunal, where no prevarication of witnesses can misinform 
the Judge, where no subtility of an advocate, miscalling the names of 
things, and putting evil for good, and good for evil, can mislead the 
judgment." 

" Slavery," said Lord Mansfield, " is so odious that noth- 
ing but positive law can sustain it." His lordship little suspected 
that, a time was approaching when the Church would afford it 
more efficient support than even positive law, and would herself 
look to it for support in return. One of our church periodicals 
has announced that " the Bishop of Georgia, in his Montpelier 
Institution, is testing the sufficiency of slave-labor to support it. 
It is not unusual to see in the southern papers, notices of slaves 
to be sold on account of ecclesiastical corporations. Bishop 
Wilberforce, in his History, refers to a proposal by the editor of 
the " Spirit of Missions " to establish a mission school to be 
supported by slaves, who shall be induced, by the promise of 
prospective emancipation, to perform so much extra labor in 
the course of sixteen years as to yield a profit of one hundred 
per cent, on the capital invested, over and above the ordinary 
profits extorted by common taskmasters. This revolting scheme, 
in which it was intended that the slaves would work two hours 
before sunrise, and two hours after sunset, in all sixteen hours 
out of the four and twenty, and this for sixteen successive years, 
was pressed upon the Church in an official magazine, published 



438 jay's works. 

in New York under the supervision of the Missionary Commit- 
tee, and by an editor holding his appointment from the Board of 
Missions, including the bishops, and other representatives of 
the Church elected by the General Convention. In about three 
months after this publication, the Board assembled, and written 
remonstrances were presented to them, beseeching them, for the 
honor of the Church, and the cause of religion and humanity, to 
disavow the conduct of their editor. These remonstrances ex- 
cited warm debates, not unmingled with southern arrogance. 
It was impossible for the Board to express disapprobation of 
the plan without indirectly censuring Bishops Ives and Elliott. 
If slaves be indeed property, what objection can there be to 
converting their bones and muscles into money for the Church ? 
To condemn the editor, would otfend the pro-slavery Bishops 
and clergy ; expressly to approve his conduct, would raise a 
tempest at the North. So, policy was substituted for godly sin- 
cerity, and cunning for wisdom. The Board expunged from 
their minutes the proceedings had on the memorials, and avoid- 
ing all intelligible allusion to the scheme which had led to them, 
ordered the following words to be printed on the future numbers 
of their own magazine : 

" It is to be understood by the readers of this periodical, that the 
Board of Missions are not responsible for the expression of editorial 
opinions, but simply for the accuracy of facts connected with their 
operations." 

But lest even this extraordinary disclaimer should be supposed 
to involve a concealed censure on the late "editorial opinions," 
the resolution recommending it, and which was introduced by a 
Bishop from a slave State, as chairman of a committee, was pi-e- 
ceded by another, declaring, " That, in the opinion of this Board, 
the Spirit of Missions has been conducted, during the year past, 
with commendable diligence and ability ; " and the report of the 
committee accompanying these resolutions is careful to state that 
the periodical in question is " gaining reputation and influence, 
and that if it continues to be conducted with the same ability 
which it has of late exhibited, it will become a powerful auxiliary 
to the cause." 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 439 

The subject of slavery had been brought directly and promi- 
nently before the Church, by her own appropriate officers. Mon- 
ey, entrusted to the Board for missionary purposes, had been 
employed through the official magazine, to advocate the cause 
of human bondage, to condemn emancipation as "ruinous, and 
forbidden by common sense and Christian prudence," and to put 
in motion a machinery by which money was to be extorted for 
the coffers of the Church, from the cruel and extraordinary toil 
of miserable slaves. The memorialists had virtually asked the 
reverend and right reverend fathers of the Church, in council 
assembled, Do, or do you not, approve of this conduct of your 
agent ? To this interrogatory, the reverend gentlemen thought 
it expedient to answer neither yes nor no ; but in the notice they 
ordered to be in future printed on their magazine, they did return 
a most disingenuous and unworthy reply. No human being 
ever supposed that the members of the Board, scattered through- 
out the Union, were responsible for the publication or " expression" 
in New York, of opinions of which they could have no previous 
knowledge, and of course no power to prevent. Did the Board 
intend to enunciate so bold a truism as this ? As well might 
they have given notice that they were not responsible for any 
heresy or immorality of which their officers might hereafter be 
guilty. "When examined with a critical microscope, the disclaim- 
er has reference to the " expression " — the j)rinti?ig of opinions 
in New York. But in the plain, obvious, popular import of the 
notice, the disclaimer has reference to the opinions, after they 
are expressed and printed. In this sense alone, had the dis- 
claimer any reference to the subject which induced it. Nay, the 
Board intended it to be so understood ; for they thought proper 
to order a resolution to be sent to the memorialists, who had 
" complained of the tendency of an editorial article in the March 
number of the Spirit of Missions" (carefully avoiding mention- 
ing in the minutes, the subject of the article), declaring that the 
Board had never " held itself responsible for the opinions ex- 
pressed by the editors of the Spirit of Missions," and had direct- 
ed " this assertion of irresponsibility to be distinctly placed upon 
the cover of the future numbers of this periodical." 



440 jay's works. 

On this assertion of "irresponsibility" we take issue, and af- 
firm that the Board is responsible to the community, to the 
Church, and to God, for the opinions of an editor appointed by 
themselves, under their control, paid out of funds entrusted to 
their care, published in an official magazine, and printed at the ex- 
pense of missionary contributions. What ! will the Board tell 
us that their editor may make their magazine a vehicle for the 
dissemination of obscenity and infidelity, and that it is no concern 
of theirs ? That he may disparage the Church, insult her bish- 
ops, and deny her doctrines, and that they are not responsible ? 
But should he misdate a letter, or omit half a dollar in the 
acknowledgment of a donation, then, then indeed, they will not 
shrink from responsibility. 

Surely the bishops who concurred in this " assertion of irre- 
sponsibility," forgot for the moment their consecration vow, " to 
be ready with all faithful vigilance to drive away from the 
Church all strange and ei'roneous doctrines contrary to God's 
word." 

Tbis disclaimer, like most cunning measures, was a sacrifice 
of duty to present expediency ; a sacrifice which, however com- 
mon with politicians, we had no right to expect from such a body 
of men. The truth is, the Board were worried by the memorials. 
To take no notice of them would probably increase " agitation" 
— to approve the course of the editor, would disgust many at the 
North — to condemn it, would offend all at the South. Instead 
of manfully breaking down this triple hedge, within which they 
found themselves enclosed, they determined to crawl through it, 
and for this purpose, disincumbered themselves of a responsibil- 
ity which God and the Church had commanded them to bear. 

Let us now turn to another, but a kindred subject. Whatever 
may be the struggles of the slave-holder to wring from the Bible 
a title to his slaves, no reader of the volume of inspiration, 
whether Christian or infidel, has professed to discover in it a 
warrant for the establishment of caste in the Church of God. 
However much we may be inclined to appeal to the Scriptures 
for a license to despise, insult, and oppress our fellow-Christians, 
on account of their race or natural features, we are effectually 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 441 

deterred by the declarations that one God hath created us — that 
we have all one Father — that in Christ Jesus there is neither 
Jew nor Gentile, Greek nor barbarian, bond nor free ; and by 
the commands to do good unto all men, and to honor all men. 
Hence the institution of caste in the Church, and the obloquy, 
injustice, and cruelty connected with it, are not rested, like 
slavery, on the alleged consent of Christ and his apostles ; but 
simply and frankly on pecuniary interest, personal antipathy, and 
popular prejudice. 

So accustomed have we been from childhood to the distinction 
of caste, arising from color — so universally is this distinction 
maintained not merely in the Church, but in all the departments 
of society, that we have, for the most part, become callous to its 
iniquity ; and our understandings can with difficulty be brought 
to believe that the merciful precepts of Christ's Gospel were 
intended to govern our intercourse with men of dark, as well as 
of white complexions. But although we may be insensible to 
the cruelty of caste, it is otherwise with its victims. 

The Rev. T. S. Wright, a liberally educated colored clergy 
man, thus briefly enumerates some of the consequences of thai 
system, which our Church has been so active and zealous in 
maintaining. 

" No man can really understand this prejudice unless he feels it crush- 
ing him to dust, because it is matter of feeiing. It has bolts, screws, 
and bars, wherever the colored man goes. It has bolts in all the schools 
and colleges. The colored parent, with the same soul as the white 
parent, sends his child to the seats of learning, and he finds the door 
bolted, and sits down to weep beside his boy. Prejudice stands at the 
door and bars him out. Does the child of the colored man show a tal- 
ent for mechanics ? The heart of the parent beats with hope. He 
sees the children of the white man engaged in employment, and he 
trusts there is a door open for his boy to get an honest living, and be- 
come a useful member of society. But when he comes to the workshop 
with his child, he finds a bolt there. But even suppose he can get this 
first bolt removed, he finds other bars. Let him be ever so skilled as 
a mechanic, up starts prejudice and says, ' I wont work in the shop, if 
you do.' Here he is scourged by prejudice, and has to go back and 
sink down to some of the employments which white men leave for the 
most degraded. He hears of the death of a child from home, and he 
goes in a stage or steamboat. His money is received, but he is scourged 
by prejudice. If he is sick, he can have no bed ; he is driven on deck. 
Money will not buy for him the comforts it gets for all who have not 

38 



442 jay's works. 

his complexion. He turns to some -white friend, and he says, ' Submit; 
it is an ordinance of God, you must be humble.' I have felt this. As 
a minister, I have been called to pass often up and down the North 
River in steamboats. Many a night have I walked the deck, and not 
been able to lie down in a bed.* Prejudice would, indeed, turn money 
to dross, where it was offered for these comforts by a colored man. 
Thus prejudice scourges us from the table, it scourges us from the cabin, 
from the stage-coach, and from the bed. Wherever we go, it has for 
us bolts, bars, and rods. Even at the communion table, the colored 
man can only partake of the crumbs after the others have been served. 
This prejudice drives the colored man from religion. I have often 
heard my brethren say, they would have nothing to do with such a re- 
ligion. They are driven away, and go to infidelity ; for even the infi- 
dels at Tammany Hall make no distinction on account of color." 

That this prejudice may drive some of the sufferers into in- 
fidelity is probable ; since it has been a common mistake in all 
ages, to judge of Christianity, not by its own inspired records, 
but by the conduct of a portion of its fallible ministers. And 
he who is led to believe that American slavery, and its detestable 
offspring, American caste, is approved of by Jesus Christ, may 
well be excused for questioning the divinity of his mission. 

Although caste had long existed among us in practice, the ex- 
clusion of Mr. Crummell from the General Theological Semi- 
nary was the first instance of its recognition, as a part of the 
ecclesiastical polity of the American Church. Mr. Degrass, 
the young man whose affecting journal is given by Bishop "Wil- 
berforce, was kept out of the Seminary by the personal influence 
and authority of Bishop Benjamin Onderdonk. But in Mr. 
Crummell, the bishop found a more impracticable subject, and a 
petition for admission was presented to the assembled Trustees. 
The statutes of the institution rendered it imperative on the 
Trustees to admit all applicants possessing certain qualifications, 
and these qualifications the bishop honestly informed the Board, 
were possessed by the present applicant. The Board, under 
these circumstances, found themselves in a dilemma. To reject 
the young man on account of his complexion would not only be 
illegal, but would excite remark, invite ridicule, and encourage 

* The writer has been informed, that the wife of Mr. Wright lost her life 
in consequence of exposure on the deck of a steamboat, being denied a berth 
in the cabin, on account of her complexion. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 443 

* agitation ; " and on the other hand, to admit him, would irritate 
a prejudice which Bishop Onderdonk had admitted to Degrass 
was " unrighteous ; " and might also hazard the loss of south- 
ern contributions to the Seminaiy. A committee, with Bishop 
Henry Onderdonk, of Pennsylvania, as chairman, was appointed 
to consider the application ; and their report was more dis- 
tinguished for brevity than for wisdom. Without assigning a 
single reason, and without an allusion to the complexion of the 
applicant, they merely recommended " that the prayer of the 
petitioner be not granted." The report was adopted, whereupon, 
Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, asked permission, which was re- 
fused, to enter his objections on the minutes. Hence the minutes 
merely record the fact, that a Mr. Crummell had applied for ad- 
mission into the Seminary and was denied. They afforded no 
intimation that the Trustees had violated the statutes, no hint 
that the rejected candidate was not colored like themselves. 
Should any one wonder why the application was rejected, the 
natural presumption would be, that the young man was deficient 
in his literary attainments or moral character, and that the com- 
mittee who reported against him had benevolently refrained from 
putting his delinquencies upon record. But Mr. Crummell was 
a poor, obscure colored man ; there was no probability that his 
ease would excite inquiry, or ever be known. Certainly the 
management of the Trustees was exceedingly adroit. Alas for 
the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent. 
In a short time the proceedings of the Board were exposed and 
condemned in the newspapers, not only of New York, but of 
London, and now form a conspicuous and indelible portion of 
the "History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America.'' 
The Bishop of New York thought it expedient to vindicate him- 
self in a newspaper publication, in which he condescends to pro- 
pitiate the " unrighteous prejudice " by a gratuitous sneer at 
amalgamation. (!) 

Mr. Crummell sought and obtained ordination in another dio- 
cese, and then resolved to embrace an opportunity that offered, 
of organizing a colored church in Philadelphia. He accordingly 
repaired to that city, with the usual letter dismissory from his 



444 jay's works. 

late diocese, and in compliance with the canon, presented it to 
the bishop. We can readily believe that this last gentleman was 
not gratified at finding that the young man, who on his recom- 
mendation had been excluded from the Seminary, now claimed 
a canonical residence in his own diocese, as a brother minister 
of the Church. The canons allowed the bishop no discretion. 
Mr. Crummell's letter was unexceptionable, and by the laws of 
the Church, he became entitled, on its delivery, to all the rights 
and privileges of a clergyman of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. 
But the bishop was as independent of legal restraints in Phila- 
delphia, as he had been in New York. He informed Mr. Crum- 
mell that he would receive his letter, only on the condition that 
he would pledge himself, in his own behalf, and in behalf of his 
Church, should he succeed in raising one, never to apply for a 
seat in Convention ; and immediately proposed to write the 
pledge. He was told it was unnecessary, as the pledge could 
not be given. He then positively declared he would not receive 
him, on which the young minister intimated his intention to 
return to the diocese he had just left. Here again was an em- 
barrassing dilemma. To disregard a dismissory letter from 
another diocese, and to send back the bearer, without the slight- 
est objection being made to his character or conduct, might lead 
to very inconvenient results, and would unquestionably cause 
much " agitation ; " and, on the other hand, to admit a negro to a 
canonical residence, was to open the door of the Convention to him, 
the consequence of which would be, that a minister of Christ, 
with a dark complexion, might sit in the Council of the Church ! 
The bishop, to escape from this dilemma, proposed that he should 
inform the Convention in his address at its next meeting, that 
he had been admitted with the understanding that he was to 
have no seat in it. Mr. Crummell, with the same high moral 
courage which had hitherto marked his course, replied that he 
could have no agency in the matter. Thwarted in his attempts 
to make Mr. Crummell surrender his rights as a clergyman, the 
bishop determined that others should wrest them from him ; and 
consented to receive the dismissory letter, telling him that he 
would get the Convention to take some order on the subject. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 445 

About three weeks after this strange conference, the Conven- 
tion of the Diocese assembled, and the bishop's address contained 
the following passage : 

" In the Convention of 1 795, it was declared that the African Church 
of St. Thomas, in this city, was ' not entitled to send a clergyman or 
deputies to the Convention, or to interfere with the general government 
of the Church.' This law is still retained in our 8th Revised Regula- 
tions. The peculiar circumstances which required this restriction may 
occur, and probably will, in other cases; and I submit for your consid- 
eration whether it will not be proper to enact a similar restriction ap- 
plicable to all clergymen and congregations in this diocese under like 
circumstances." 

It does really seem as if a consciousness of shame and guilt 
drives our ecclesiastical rulers, when perpetrating oppression 
and injustice upon colored Christians, to hide their meaning in 
unintelligible and deceptive phraseology. 

We here learn that in 1795, the Convention made a certain 
declaration, which to all appearance was judicial and not legis- 
lative, that a particular Church was not entitled to a representation 
in the Convention. The reasons for such a judgment are not 
given — they may have been good or bad, but the judgment 
itself was within the jurisdiction of the Convention, since every 
legislative body must judge of the qualifications of its members, 
although it cannot prescribe them. It does not appear that the 
Convention invaded any right, or did more than refuse to ac- 
knowledge an unlawful claim. 

And yet from the fact that the Church thus excluded was an 
African one, and from the omission of the reasons on which the 
judgment was founded, we have no question that the pretended 
declaration was a high-handed unconstitutional enactment, dis- 
franchising a rector and his congregation, solely on account of 
the tincture of their skins; and that the Convention were 
ashamed to place upon their minutes the unchristian motives by 
which they were tempted to trample under foot the constitutional 
rights of a minister of Christ, and the people under his charge. 

Bishop Onderdonk, we have seen, called on the Convention 
to enact a similar restriction, " applicable to all clergymen and 
congregations," which should hereafter be in "like circum- 

38» 



446 jay's works. 

stances." What circumstances ? A state of schism, insubordi- 
nation, or irregular or illegal incorporation ? Oh no ; he meant 
having black skins, but was ashamed to say so. 

It will be observed that the legislation recommended is to be 
prospective, not ex post facto. No clergyman or congregation, 
now in the diocese, is to be affected by it. No case now calls 
for this restriction, but cases " may occur, and probably will" and 
it is best to be prepared for contingencies. All this is painful. 
The bishop, while uttering the words we have quoted, had in 
his possession the letter dismissory of the very clergyman 
against whom the proposed restriction was aimed ; and who, by 
his advice, had been shut out of the Theological Seminary, and 
from whom he had vainly endeavored to obtain a disgraceful 
surrender of his rights as a minister of the Church. Again, in 
his address, he tells the Convention, " Letters dismissory have 
been received and accepted by me as follows," and then gives a 
list of clergymen received from other dioceses ; but Mr. Crura- 
mell's name is not among them ! 

The powers of our Conventions, like those of our State Legis- 
latures, are limited by written constitutions. The Fourth Arti- 
cle of the Constitution of the Pennsylvania Diocese declares 
that " every clergyman of the Church, of whatever order, being 
a settled minister of some parish in this State, shall be entitled 
to a seat and vote in the Convention" provided he has had a 
canonical residence of a certain time, &c. The Tenth Article 
prescribes the mode of altering the Constitution, by the joint 
action of tivo successive Conventions, and thus takes away the 
power of doing it by a simple resolution. 

Ruffian mobs had on several occasions, within the past few 
years, assailed the unoffending blacks in Philadelphia, sacked 
their dwellings, and torn down their houses of worship, and all on 
account of the complexion their Maker had given them. And 
how was this wicked, cruel prejudice against color, rebuked by 
the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania ? Why, the Convention, 
at the instigation of the bishop, 

" Resolved, That the following clause be added to the 8th Revised 
Regulation adopted in 1829, and hereafter to be taken as part thereof: 



REPROOF OP TIIE AMERICAN CHURCH. 447 

4 No Church in this diocese, in like peculiar circumstances with the Af- 
rican Church of St. Thomas, shall be entitled to send a clergyman or 
deputies to the Convention, or to interfere with the general government 
of the Church.' ' 

Thus were colored clergymen and colored Christians driven, 
in contempt and utter violation of canonical law, from the en- 
closure of the Church, as they had been, by abandoned wretches, 
from the sanctuary of their own homes. The bishop, clergy, 
and lay deputies of the Pennsylvania Church, make common 
cause with the rioters in the streets, in a general crusade against 
negroes and mulattoes ! This act of the Convention brands for 
all future time every minister of Christ, and every member of 
his mystical body, who may trace his descent from the land of 
Cyprian and Tertullian, as belonging to a distinct and degraded 
caste, and debars them from all participation in the government 
of the Redeemer's Church. This act forcibly thrusts a portion 
of the Church into schism, and repudiates one of the fundimental 
conditions on which the Diocese of Pennsylvania consented, in 
1784, to acknowledge a general ecclesiastical government in the 
United States, viz., " That to make canons and laws, there be 
no other authority than that of a representative body of the 
clergy and laity conjointly." The great truth, " HE iiatii made 
us, and not we ourselves," is set at naught by the Pennsyl- 
vania Convention ; and in the indulgence of an " unrighteous 
prejudice," or in a cowardly submission to it, they have sacri- 
ficed both the independence and the unity of the Church, the 
dignity of the ministerial office, and that love which Christ made 
the badge and test of discipleship. And this lawless and pro- 
fane excision of their brethren, these men attempted to veil 
under the strange and indefinite phraseology of " all in like 
peculiar circumstances with the African Church of St. Thomas ! " 
If anything can possibly add to the shame of this transaction, it 
is that the vote was taken without discussion ; not one single 
member of that large body, clergyman or layman, having the 
independence to rise in his place and protest against an act, at 
: variance alike with the principles of the Church, and the pre- 
, cepts of its Divine Head. And what is the apology, the only 
• apology which the Churchmen of Pennsylvania can offer for 



448 jay's works* 

this wanton insult and oppression of their colored brethren ? an 
apology that aggravates, instead of excusing their conduct. 
Popular prejudice required that colored clergymen and delegates 
should be excluded from the Convention ! It is disheartening 
to the patriot, to see our public men, those to whom high and 
important trusts are confided, so often governing themselves, not 
by the immutable principles of justice and rectitude, but by the 
ever varying opinions of the multitude. But oh ! it is sickening to 
the soul, to witness the Church of Christ sacrificing to popular 
clamor, her own holy and glorious attribute of being a light and 
a guide to a benighted and a sinful world. 

Bisbop Onderdonk of New York, in his charge of 1843, to 
the Convention, remarked : 

"Taking the Gospel for our guide, we must see in the Church and 
the world, essentially antagonistic bodies. The Church was formed not 
to cooperate with the world, but to oppose it — to attack the wicked prin- 
ciples and practices to which it is in bondage, and to come to no terms 
with it on any other principles than its entire surrender of its opposi- 
tion to the pure and holy spirit of the Gospel, and its entire submission 
to the rule which Christ, through his Church, would establish over it 

for good Let us ever, by the grace of God, be careful that 

in our intercourse with it, we adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour 
in all things; and then go forward in our Masters work, indifferent 
save for its own sake, whether the world be pleased or offended; and, in- 
deed, looking for the ill will and opposition from it, which that Master 
and his divine "Word have prepared us to expect." 

Glorious truths ! Godly counsels ! worthy of an age of martyrs 
and confessors. Alas, that they should have been in the lips of 
him who uttered them, Vox et preterea nihil! Let the diary of 
the young candidate for orders, given in the " History," tell how 
this bold-spoken bishop crouched before a prejudice which his 
own tongue confessed to be " unrighteous ; " and sacrificed duty 
and independence, lest the Seminary should lose the support of 
"the South!" 

Bank and caste arc essentially different ; and while the former 
is sanctioned by the Bible, which requires us to render honor to 
those to whom honor is due, the latter is heathenish in its origin 
and character. Hank is founded on condition, and is usually con- 
nected with personal distinctions and acquirements. It unavoid- 






REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 449 

ably springs from the organization of society ; and while it may 
confer privileges, is not necessarily inconsistent with the claims 
of justice and humanity. Caste, on the contrary, regards races, 
irrespective of the individuals composing them. In Hindostan, it 
both elevates and depresses — with us, its only effects are degra- 
dation, cruelty, and wretchedness. In the former country, the 
two extremes of caste are the Brahmins and Soodras,* and the 
gulf between them is wider and more impassable than that which 
in our own separates the whites and the blacks. And yet the 
American Church may learn an edifying lesson from the tempo- 
rary cessation of caste in the presence of a Hindoo idol. 

"I was surprised," says Dr. Claudius Buchanan, in the journal of his 
tour to the Temple of Juggernaut, in Orissa, in 1806, "to see the 
Brahmins, with their heads uncovered, in the open plain, and falling 
down in the midst of the Soodras, before the horrid shape, and mingling 
so complacently with that ' polluted caste ;" but this proved what I had 
before heard, that so great a god is this, that the dignity of high caste 
disappears before him. This great king recognizes no distinction of 
rank among his subjects. All men are equal in his presence." 

"We have long gloried in the conviction, not only that we are 
a true Church, but that, besides ourselves, there is none other. 
Too many among us are disposed to look down upon Christians 
of other names, with much the same feeling with which the phar- 
isee beheld the publican who came to the temple to pray. It 
seems to be not unfrequently forgotten, that the glory of the 
Church consists, not in her organization, nor in her rites and 
ceremonies, but in her holiness, which, like the Shechinah of 
the ancient temple, proclaims the presence of the Divine Lord. 

The Church is, unquestionably, spiritually diseased, so far as 

* " Soodras may be frequently seen carrying water in a cup, and entreating 

the first Brahmin they meet, to put his toelnto it; after which they drink 

the water, and bow or prostrate themselves before the Brahmin, who bestows 

his blessing upon them. Others preserve some of this holy water in their 

houses. Not only is the body of aSoodra laid prostrate before the Brahmin, 

to lick the dust of his feet, but his soul is also sacrificed to his honor. If a 

Soodra dare to listen to the salvation-giving Vedu, he is to be punished for 

j his sacrilege. If a Brahmin happen to be repeating any part of the Vedu 

; aloud, a Soodra, if near, shuts his ears and runs away. If a Soodra enter the 

; cook-room of a Brahmin, the latter throws away all his earthen vessels as 

defiled; nay, the very touch of a Soodra makes a Brahmin unclean, and com- 

I pels him to bathe in order to wash away the stain." Ward's View of the 

, Hindoos, pp. 79, 107. 



450 jay's works. 

she ceases to be, in the language of Bishop Onderdonk, " antag- 
onistic to the world, and to attack its wicked principles and prac- 
tices." Tried by this test, what is the comparative health and 
vitality of the Pennsylvania Episcopal Convention, and the Penn- 
sylvania Presbyterian Synod ? The latter body, like the first, is 
composed of clerical and lay deputies ; and although named from 
the State in which most of its members reside, embraces various 
churches in Maryland. On the 30th of September, 1839, the 
Synod held its session at Elkton, in the latter State ; and of 
course in the midst of slave-holders. Two colored members 
took their seats, and assisted in organizing the body. Their 
presence excited the indignation of some of the rabble in Elkton ; 
and a letter was addressed to a member, recommending the re- 
tirement of the two delegates. The letter was shown to them, 
and they immediately left the town. The Synod was uninformed 
of what had occurred, until after their departure, whereupon the 
following resolution was adopted: 

" Whereas, this Synod have learned that two of their number, the 
Rev. Jacob Rhodes, and Mr. Stephen II. Gloucester, colored brethren, 
have withdrawn, and returned to their homes, in consequence of rep- 
resentations that their presence occasioned some unusual excitement in 
a portion of the community ; therefore, 

" Resolved, That the Synod regret the existence of a prejudice so 
unreasonable; and, especially, regret that their brethren, whose right 
to a seat in this body stands on the same basis as that of any of its mem- 
bers, should have felt themselves called upon to relinquish privileges 
to which they were justly entitled, and in the enjoyment of which they 
should have been sacredly protected." 

The Rev. Mr. Kip, in his recent work,* describing a visit he 
made to the Propaganda College in Rome, says : 

" The students, about eighty in number, were ranged on the two 
sides of the chapel, and presented a strange mixture of all nations and 
colors. I counted among them five Chinese, and two Africans. Yet 
here they all sat side by side, without any distinction, singing together 
the praises of their common Lord. Surely it must be acknowledged 
that, in this respect, Rome carries out her own catholic principles, and 
declares not only in words but by her actions, that " God hath made of 
one blood all nations of men, to dwell on the face of the earth." She 
recognizes no distinction of climate or country in the house of God. 

* Christmas Holidays in Rome. 1816. 



REPROOF OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 451 

We had just before, as we entered the door of the chapel, witnessed a 
similar evidence of this catholic spirit. An old man, black as possible, 
in an ecclesiastical dress, was just getting into a carriage. He was as- 
sisted by two priests, who, with many bows and demonstrations of re- 
spect, were taking leave of him." 

We trust Mr. Kip remembered with pain the exclusion of 
colored candidates for orders from the " Propaganda " of his 
own Church, and the obloquy heaped on his colored brethren in 
the ministry, by the Pennsylvania Convention, and that he will 
joyfully aid in infusing into the Episcopal Church " the catholic 
principles " so honorably manifested by Papists at Rome and 
Presbyterians at Elkton. 

In the course of these remarks we have expressed ourselves 
strongly, because we felt deeply ; and on reviewing our lan- 
guage we see no cause to modify it. But while we cannot doubt 
that the acts we have censured were morally wrong, we are too 
painfully sensible of the frailty of our common nature, to inti- 
mate that a Christian profession, to be sincere, must be without 
offence. Nor are we forgetful of the power of pecuniary interest, 
parochial dependence, and habitual prejudice, in warping the 
judgment, beguiling the conscience, and hardening the heart, in 
relation to slavery and caste. Much, also, of what has been 
wrong in our ecclesiastical proceedings, has unquestionably 
arisen, not from reflection, but from the want of it. Neverthe- 
less, the responsibilities of the Church are of awful magnitude, 
extending to the life that now is, and to that which is to come ; 
and they are shared by all her members, however humble. 

The Church militant will find her strength and safety only in 
unceasing conflict with the world, however dire may be the strife. 
The blood of martyrs has ever proved the seed of the Church. 
But when she grows faint-hearted, and distrusting the " armor 
of righteousness" provided by the Captain of her salvation, 
seeks for weapons of earthly mould, and calls to her aid the 
selfish passions and sinful prejudices of society, she is treacher- 
ous to her Lord, and forms a truce with his enemies fatal to 
herself. Henceforth her energies, no longer directed against 
the strongholds of sin, are wasted in "doubtful disputations," 



452 jay's works. 

and on unprofitable rites and ceremonies. The world is satisfied, 
and applauds her discretion and moderation, because, although 
she may retain the form of Godliness, she has parted with its 
power. 

Had the American Church from the first fought a good fight 
against slavery and caste, these abominations, which now so 
much impair her usefulness, and so widely extend the dominion 
of the great enemy of souls, would have been swept from our 
land ; a new proof would have been given of the divine character 
of our holy religion, and the Christian priesthood would have 
acquired new claims to the gratitude and reverence of mankind. 
Our Church has hitherto erred in no small measure from igno- 
rance and inadvertence. Such a plea can no longer avail her. 
A voice from abroad — a voice she can neither stifle nor de- 
ride — calls her to repentance and reformation. The reproof of 
Bishop Wilberforce must and will be heard. The sensibilities 
of Christians in our land are awakening to the momentous ques- 
tions to which we have referred. The various denominations 
around us are daily breaking the ties which have hitherto bound 
them to the cause of the oppressor. Numerous Churchmen 
among ourselves are complaining of the league which their 
clergy and representative bodies have formed with human bond- 
age ; and the Church of England is marking and lamenting the 
delinquencies of her daughter. If the Church values the appro- 
bation of her Divine Master ; if she appreciates the character 
and objects of her own holy mission ; if she desires to avoid 
agitation in her councils, she must be more than the promulgator 
and advocate of an abstract theology, however pure and truthful 
in itself. She must practically exhibit the blessed Gospel as at 
once the antagonist and corrective of every form of wickedness 
that mars the happiness of man in this world, as well as the 
next ; she must, in short, manifest faith which worketh by 

LOVE, PURIFIETH THE HEART, AND OVERCOMETH THE WORLD. 



A LETTER 

TO THE RIGHT REV. L. SILLIMAN IVES, 

BISHOr OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE STATE OF 
NORTH CAROLINA. 



Right Reverend Sir: 

History tells us of a certain bishop who was taken prisoner in 
battle, while fighting against the king of France. The Pope, 
indignant that a prelate of the church should be held as a cap- 
tive, demanded his instant liberation. To this mandate the 
king replied by sending his Holiness the bishop's blood-stained 
armor, with the words of Scripture, " This have we found : 
know now, whether it be thy son's coat or no." 

And surely the ambassador of Him who came to preach deliv- 
erance to the captive, and liberty to them that are bruised, as 
effectually disguises and denies holy office, when he chants the 
praises of slavery, with all its inseparable and unutterable abomi- 
nations, as when he arrays himself in the garment of the warrior, 
and participates in the work of human butchery. Of all the 
bishops of the church, you alone aspire to the championship of 
human bondage. Your brother of Texas reposes on the laurels 
he has won in the service of the slave-holders. Others of your 
reverend and right reverend brethren are content to enjoy the 
unrequited toils of their bondmen, without provoking the atten- 
tion of the public to the discrepancy between their religion and 
39 



454 jay's works. 

their practice. You alone throw down the gauntlet to the whole 
of Christendom beyond the slave region. It was not enough 
that you had already endorsed with the whole weight of your 
Episcopal influence the frantic assertions, that " no men nor 

SET OF MEN IN OUR DAY, UNLESS THEY CAN PRODUCE A 
NEW REVELATION FROM HEAVEN, ARE ENTITLED TO PRO- 
NOUNCE SLAVERY WRONG," and that " SLAVERY, AS IT EXISTS 
AT THE PRESENT DAY, IS AGREEABLE TO THE ORDER OF 

Divine Providence;" you must introduce the subject into the 
council of your church, and entertain your convention with a 
picture of the blessedness of North Carolina slaves, and with 
sneers at the wailing of your fellow Christians over their " im- 
aginary " suffering. Should we seek for the cause of your peculiar 
ultraism in behalf of human chattelism, we should probably find 
it in the tendency of human nature, under a change of position, 
to vibrate from one extreme to the other ; and which is exempli- 
fied in the proverbial cruelty and arrogance of the slave, when 
elevated to the post of driver. Had you, when preparing for 
the ministry among your native hills of New York, been told 
that the day would come Avhen you would claim to hold your 
fellow-men as bondmen by the grace of God, and would scoff" at 
the sufferings of southern slaves, the answer of Hazael to the 
prophet would have trembled on your lips. 

Your late address to the convention of your diocese contained 
the following extraordinary passages : 

" From this place I went, by the request of my friend, Josiah Collins, 
Esq., directly to the estates on Lake Scuppernong, which had been 
without stated ministerial services for the greater part of the year. 
Here, and in the neighboring parish at Pettigrew's chapel, I passed the 
remainder part of the season of Lent, holding daily services, delivering 
lectures, and commencing a new course of oral catechetical instruc- 
tions to the servants. This course is to embrace the prominent events 
and truths of the Old and New Testaments, as connected with man's 
fall and redemption, and is designed to follow the oral catechism I 
have already published. The services here were of the most gratifying 
character, fully justifying all that has been said and anticipated of the 
system of religious training heretofore pursued on these plantations. 
When I saw master and servants standing side by side in the holy ser- 
vices of Passion week — when I saw all secular labor on these planta- 
tions suspended on Good Friday, and the cleanly clad multitude throng- 
ing the house of prayer, to pay their homage to a crucified Saviour — 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 455 

and -when I saw on the blessed Easter morn, the master with his 
goodly number of servants kneeling with reverent hearts and devout 
thanksgivings to take the bread of life at the same altar — I could not 
but indulge the hope that ere long my spirit may be refreshed by such 
scenes in every part of my diocese ; while I could not help believing 
that, had some of our brethren of other lands been present, they would 
have been induced to change the note of their wailing over imaginary 
suffering, into the heartfelt exclamation, ' Happy are the people that 
are in such a case } yea, blessed are the people who have the Lord for 
their God.' 

" Often, at such times, have I wished for the presence of my friend, 
the good Bishop of Oxford, as I have felt assured that, could he but 
once witness what it is my happiness to witness, though in a too imperfect 
state, his manly heart would prompt him to ask instant pardon of the 
American church, for having spoken so harshly upon a subject which 
he so imperfectly understood ; and that he would perceive that his Chris- 
tian sympathy might find a much more natural vent in efforts to remove 
the cruel oppressions of the factory system in his own country, and 
his Christian indignation a much more legitimate object of rebuke 
in the English churchmen who have helped to rivet that system upon 
their land." 

If ever truth is peculiarly obligatory, it is when a bishop, 
acting in his high and holy office, addresses a council of the 
church of God. We are here informed that our brethren of 
other lands have raised a " note of wailing over IMAGINARY 
suffering ; " and the context forbids us to understand the expres 
sion in any other sense than a solemn official declaration that 
southern slavery is unattended with real actual suffering ! The 
assurance is also avowed, that had the Bishop of Oxford wit- 
nessed the scenes at Scuppernong, he would have been prompted 
to ask instant pardon of the American church, for having spoken 
so harshly upon a subject which he so imperfectly understood. 
Such an assurance is no less wonderful than unwarranted. The 
subject on which the bishop is accused of having spoken harshly 
and without understanding it, is American slavery, and the sup- 
port afforded it by the American church. 

Your address, sir, is the first response made to the Bishop of 
Oxford's reproof of the American church. So long as it was 
hoped the reproof would be suppressed in this country, a most 
profound silence was observed respecting it. Scarcely an Epis- 
copalian in the country seemed to know that the history of his 
church had been written by an eminent English divine. But 



456 jay's works. 

no sooner is an extract from his history published, bearing upon 
the horrors of southern slavery, and the delinquencies of our 
bishops and clergy respecting it, than you think proper to rep- 
resent him as imperfectly acquainted with the subject, and pro- 
fess to believe that, if better informed, he would ask instant 
pardon of the church for what he had written.* It is to be 
regretted, sir, that you found it inexpedient to specify the alleged 
suffering which you pronounce imaginary, or to point out a single 
mistake into which your good brother of Oxford has fallen, and 
which would tend in any degree to verify your charge against 
him of imperfectly understanding his subject. But sir, there are 
writers against whom you, a northern man, will not think it dec- 
orous to bring a similar charge. The following witnesses, you 
will perceive, differ from you as to the blessedness of southern 
slavery, and dare to call it wrong, without waiting for a new 
revelation from Heaven. 

Wahington : — " Your late purchase of an estate in the colony of 
Cayenne, with a view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous 
and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit might 
diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country." 
Letter to Lafayette, 10th May, 1786. 

Jefferson : — "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, 
when we have removed the only firm basis — a conviction in the minds 
of the people that these liberties are the gift of God — that they are not 
to be violated but with his wrath ? Indeed I tremble for my country 
when I reflect that God is just ; that his justice cannot sleep for ever ; 
that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution 
of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible 
events; that it may become possible by supernatural interference. 
The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a 
contest." Notes on Virginia. 

* " No doubt, the whole church of England might with equal propriety be 
•called to ask pardon of her American daughter, as it is to be hoped every one 
of her bishops, priests and deacons, most cordially concurs in the propriety 
and justice of the Bishop of Oxford's reproof. The Bishop of Norwich, in a 
letter of 19th October, 1840, to an American gentleman who had furnished 
him with certain papers, including portions of Freeman's Sermon, and Bishop 
Ives's endorsement of it, remarks : " I have always considered it as an 
anomaly, that any State professing Christianity could for a moment tolerate 
a tyranny so utterly at variance with every feeling of justice and humanity, 
but I never could have believed that any individuals existed, calling them- 
selves ministers of the gospel, whose minds were so darkened by prejudice and 
self-interest as to avow an approval of slavery and its evil consequences, 
had I not found them so unequivocally confirmed in the documents above 
mentioned." 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 457 

Madison : — " Many circumstances at the present moment seem to 
concur in brightening the prospects of the Society, and cherishing the 
hope that the time will come when the dreadful calamity which has so 
long afflicted our country, and filled so many with despair, will be 
gradually removed." Letter to American Colonization Society, 29$ 
December, 1831. 

Monroe: — "We have found that this evil (slavery) has preyed 
upon the very vitals of the community, and has been prejudicial to all 
the States in which it has existed." Speech in Virginia Convention. 

William Pixkxey : — "It is really matter of astonishment to me, 
that the people of Maryland do not blush at the very name of freedom. 
Not content with exposing to the world, for near a century, a speaking 
picture of abominable oppression, they are still ingenious to prevent 
the hand of generosity from robbing it of half its horrors." Speech on 
Slavery in Maryland House of Delegates, 1789. 

Patrick Henry : — " It is a debt we owe the purity of our reli- 
gion, to show that it is at variance with that law which warrants sla- 
very." Letter to A. BenezcU 

Manumission Society of North Carolina : — " In the east- 
ern parts of the State, the slaves considerably outnumber the free 
population. Their situation there is wretched beyond description. Im- 
poverished by the mismanagement which we have already attempted 
to describe, the master, unable to supply his own grandeur and main- 
tain his slaves, puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowance, 
scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a great part go half 
naked and half starved much of the time. . . . Generally, throughout 
the State, the African is an abused, a monstrously outraged creature.' 
Report, 1826. 

Joiin Randolph : — " Sir, I envy neither the head nor the heart 
of that man, from the North, who rises here to defend slavery on prin- 
ciple." Speech in Congress, 1829. 

Mr. Moore: — " Slavery as it exists in Virginia, may be regarded 
as the heaviest calamity which has ever fallen to this portion of the 
human race. One of the evils which arises from it, is the irresistible 
tendency which it has to undermine and destroy everything like virtue 
and morality in the community." Speech in Virginia Legislature, 1832. 

Thomas M. Randolph : — "It is a practice, and an increasing 
practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How 
can an honorable mind, a patriot and a lover of his country, bear to 
see this Ancient Dominion converted into one vast menagerie, where 
men are reared for market like oxen for the shambles ? " Speech in Vir- 
ginia Legislature, 1832. 

Rev. R. J. Breckenridge, of Baltimore : — "What is slavery as 
it exists among us ? We reply, it is that condition, enforced by the 
laws of one half of the States of this confederacy, in which one portion 
of the community, called masters, is allowed such power over another 
portion, called slaves, as — 

"1. To deprive them of the entire earnings of their own labor, 

39* 



458 jay's works. 

except only so much as is necessary to continue labor itself, by continu- 
ing healthy existence — thus committing clear robbery. 

" 2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal concubinage, by 
denying to them the civil rights of marriage — thus breaking up the 
dearest relations of life, and encouraging universal prostitution. 

" 3. To deprive them of the means and opportunities of moral and 
intellectual culture ; in many States making it a high penal offence to 
teach them to read — thus perpetuating whatever evil there is that pro- 
ceeds from ignorance. 

" 4. To set up between parents and their children an authority higher 
than the impulse of nature and the laws of God, which breaks up the 
authority of the father over his own offspring, and at pleasure separates 
the mother at a returnless distance from her child — thus abrogating 
the clear laws of nature, thus outraging all decency and justice, and 
degrading and oppressing thousands upon thousands of beings created 
like themselves in the image of the Most High God. This is sla- 
very, as it is daily exhibited in every slave State." African Reposi- 
tory, 1834. 

Synod of Kentucky : — " Brutal stripes, and all the various kinds 
of personal indignities are not the only species of cruelty which slavery 
licenses. The law does not recognize the family relations of a slave, 
and extends to him no protection in the enjoyment of domestic endear- 
ments. The members of a slave family may be forcibly separated, so 
that they shall never more meet till the final judgment ; and cupidity 
often induces the masters to practise what the law allows. Brothers 
and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives are torn asunder, 
and permitted to see each other no more. These acts are daily occur- 
ring in the midst of us. The shrieks and the agony often witnessed 
on such occasions proclaim with a trumpet tongue, the iniquity and 
cruelty of our system." Address, 1835. 

Henry Clay : — "I consider slavery as a curse — a curse to the 
master — a wrong, a grievous wrong to the slave. In the abstract, it is 
all wrong, and no possible contingency can make it right." Coloniza- 
tion Speech, 1836. 

T. Marshall, of Fauquier county, Virginia : — " Slavery is ruinous 
to the whites. The master has no capital but what is vested in human 
flesh. The father, instead of being richer for his sons, is at a loss 
to provide for them. There is no diversity of occupations, no incentive 
to enterprise. Labor of every species is disreputable, because performed 
mostly by slaves. Our towns are stationary, our villages almost every- 
where declining, and the general aspect of the country marks the 
curse of a wasteful, idle, reckless population, who have no interest in 
the soil, and care not how much it is impoverished." Speech in Vir- 
ginia Legislature, 1845. 

And now, sir, what will you do with this host of witnesses, 
which might be indefinitely enlarged ? Will you, a northern 
man, charge these witnesses with an imperfect knowledge of sla- 
very ? By no means ; but you may say of them, quite as truly 
as of the Bishop of Oxford, that, had they only been at Scup- 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 459 

pernong last Good Friday and Easter Sunday, they would have 
" been prompted to ask instant pardon " of the American church, 
for having spoken so harshly of an institution which she enjoys, 
defends, and blesses. 

Warburton, in his Divine Legation (vol. II, p. 92,) informs 
us that the ancient sages held it lawful and expedient to teach 
one doctrine to the people at large, and an opposite one to a 
select number. Hence the double doctrine of these philosophers 
— the one external, intended for the public, and known as the 
exoteric; the other internal, common to friends and disciples, 
and denominated the esoteric. The slave-holders of the present 
day have their double doctrine also ; and to distinguish between 
the exoteric and the esoteric, it is only necessary to ascertain 
whether the language used is intended for effect on the north or 
the south side of Mason and Dixon's line. For the purpose of 
illustrating this double doctrine, which in the sequel will be 
found very useful in explaining the spiritual phenomena wit- 
nessed at Scuppernong, I will call your attention to the exoteric 
teachings of those distinguished sages, Governors Hayne and 
Hammond, both within a few years chief magistrates of South 
Carolina. The former, in his message to the Legislature, in 
1833, thus speaks to the South Carolina lawgivers, but only for 
the purpose of being overheard by the people of the North : 

" It is a remarkable fact, that even during the revolutionary war, 
when the State was overrun by a barbarous enemy, marching openly 
under the banner of emancipation, our domestics could not be seduced 
from their masters, but proved a source of strength, and not of weak- 
ness, to the country." 

Governor Hayne, no doubt, adopted the maxim of the Grecian 
philosophers, that truth and utility do not always coincide ; for 
he was, of course, too well informed in the history of his native 
State not to have been conscious that the " remarkable fact " 
thus officially announced was an impudent invention of his own. 
Let us listen to the testimony borne by history to the fidelity of 
South Carolina domestics, and the strength they yielded to the 
country during the revolutionary war : 

" March 29, 1799. — The committee appointed to take into considera- 
tion the circumstances of the Southern Stales, and the ways and means 



460 jay's works. 

for (heir safety and defence, report : That the State of SouT H Caro 
lina (as represented by the delegates of said State, and by Mr. Hugcr, 
who has come hither, at the request of the Governor of said State, on 
purpose to explain the peculiar circumstances thereof) is unable to 
make any effectual efforts with the militia, by reason of the great pro- 
portion of citizens necessary to remain at home to prevent insurrection 
among the negroes, and prevent their desertion to the enemy." Secret 
Journal of Congress, Vol. II, p. 105. 

" The negroes seduced and taken from the inhabitants of South 
Carolina in the course of the war, remained subject to the disposal 
of the enemy. They were successively shipped to the West Indies ; 
and it is asserted, on the authority of the best informed citizens of 
South Carolina, that more than twenty thousand slaves were lost 
to the State in consequence of the war." Co 1 .. H. Lee's Memoirs of 
the Revolutionary War in the Southern Department, Vol. II, p. 456. 

Dr. Ramsay was a native of South Carolina, and in 1809, 
published his History of the State, in the city of Charleston. 
Is it to be believed that the governor had never heard of the 
following facts recorded by the historian ? Speaking of the 
campaign of 1779, Eamsay tells us : 

" The forces under the command of General Provost marched 
through the richest settlements of the State, where are the fewest white 
inhabitants in proportion to the number of slaves. The hapless Afri- 
cans, allured with the hopes of freedom, forsook their owners, and re- 
paired in great numbers to the royal army. They endeavored to 
recommend themselves to their new masters by discovering where their 
owners had concealed their property, and were assisting in carrying it 
off." Vol. I, p. 312. 

Describing the invasion the next year, he says : 

" The slaves a second time flocked to the British army." Vol. I, p. 
336. 

Again: "Immediately after the surrender (of Charleston,) five 
hundred negroes were ordered to be put on board the ships for piioneers 
to the royal forces in New York." Vol. I, p. 35. 

Finally : " It has been computed by good judges, that between the 
years 1775 and 1783 the State of South Carolina lost TWENTY- 
FIVE THOUSAND negroes ! ! " Vol. I, p. 475. 

The census of 1790 found the whole number of slaves, men, 
women, and children, in South Carolina, to be only 107,000. 
Now if a few years before, of those physically capable of seek- 
ing refuge in the British camp and fleet, no less than twenty-five 
thousand availed themselves of the presence of the enemy to 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 461 

escape from their masters, we may form some idea of the truth 
of Governor Hayne's eulogium on the fidelity of South Carolina 
slaves. 

The object of the Governor's mendacious fact was to lead 
the people of the North to believe that their sympathy for the 
slaves was misplaced, that their suffering was " imaginary ; " 
since, if they retained their allegiance to their masters, in the 
presence of a British emancipating army, they must certainly 
be very well contented with their condition. 

In 1822, there was in Charleston a rumor of an intended 
servile insurrection; and this very gentleman, then Colonel 
Hayne, patrolled the streets one whole night, at the head of five 
companies of soldiers, to prevent the faithful domestics from 
cutting their masters' throats. No less than thirty-five " do- 
mestics " were soon after tried, convicted, and hung, for their 
intended insurrection ; and in this judicial butchery, this same 
Colonel Hayne played his part as one of the judges ! 

The Governor did not see fit to refer to the fidelity of south- 
ern slaves during the more recent war of 1812. Let us supply 
his omission. A memorial presented to Congress by certain 
Virginia and Maryland slave-holders, and to be found in the 
documents of the 2d Sess., 20th Cong., sets forth, that " in July 
and August, 1814, the enemy made several landings on the 
northern neck of Virginia. All the militia in this peninsula 
were called into service, and the property (slaves) was pretty 
well protected. On a sudden, an order came, that all the troops 
should be marched to the defence of Washington ; and this neck 
of eighteen miles wide was emptied of all its efficient force for 
nearly six weeks. During the absence of the forces there was 
nothing to restrain our slaves, and they flocked in hundreds 

TO THE ENEMY." 

Governor Hammond, another South Carolina sage, addressing 
the North from the floor of Congress, 1st of February, 1836, 
taught the following exoteric doctrine : 

" Sir, our slaves are a peaceful, kind-hearted, and affectionate race, 
satisfied with their lot, happy in their comforts, and devoted to their mas- 
ters." It will not be an easy thing to seduce them from their fidelity." 



462 jay's works. 

And now, sir, for a little esoteric doctrine relative to the " de- 
votion " of slaves to their masters. Soon after the hanging of 
domestics by dozens in Charleston, a pamphlet appeared there, 
entitled " Reflections occasioned by the Late Disturbances in 
Charleston," attributed to Gen. T. Pinkney. It was an essay 
on the dangers to be apprehended from the slave population, 
and the means of averting them. Of the " house servants " it 
is said : 

" They are the most dangerous ; their intimate acquaintance "with all 
the circumstances relating to the interior of the dwellings, the confi- 
dence reposed in them, and the information they unavoidably obtain 
from hearing the conversation and observing the habitual transactions 
of their owners, aflbrd them the most ample means for treacherous 
bloodshed and devastation. The success, therefore, of servile 
conspiracies mainly depends on this class for taking otF by midnight 
murder their unsuspecting owners ; and the late trials, by exhibiting 
so large a portion of this description among the ringleaders of the 
conspiracy, afford a melancholy proof of their promptitude to become 
actors in such scenes," p. 14. 

Another pamphlet came out the same year at Charleston, 
said to be from the pen of Edwin C. Holland, Esq., and called 
" A Rufutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern 
and "Western States." It concluded with the following esoteric 
advice : 

" Let it never be forgotten, that our negroes are truly the Jacobins 
of the country; that they are the anarchists and the domestic enemy ; 
the common enemy of civilized society ; and the barbarians who would, 
if they could, become the destroyers of our race." 

" We of the South," says the Maysville (Tennessee) Intelligencer, 
" are emphatically surrounded by a dangerous class of beings — de- 
graded, stupid savages — who, if they could but once entertain the idea 
that immediate and unconditional death would not be their portion, 
would reenact the St. Domingo tragedy." 

Says the Southern Religious Telegraph : 

" Hatred to the whites, with the exception in some cases of attach- 
ment to the person and family of the master, is nearly universal among 
the black population. We have, then, a foe cherished in our own 
bosoms — a foe willing to draw our life blood whenever the oppor- 
tunity is offered." 

The slave-holders, when thus cautioning each other against 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 463 

the intense hatred felt for them by the slaves, seem never to ask 
themselves, " Is there not a cause ? " 

The double doctrine is not confined to the laity ; even the 
clergy occasionally condescend to use it. One of the most 
astonishing specimens of the clerical exoteric to be met with in 
the writings of southern divines, is furnished by the Rev. J. C. 
Thornton, President of the Centenary College, Clinton, Mis- 
sissippi. This gentleman, in a volume entitled an " Inquiry 
into the History of Slavery, 1841," but in reality, a philippic 
against abolitionists, scoffing at the alleged ignorance of the 
slaves, thus exclaims : 

" They are so ' ignorant ' that they are chiefly all in the South mem- 
bers of three or four denominations, Protestant Episcopalians, Presby- 
terians, Baptists, Methodists ; among all of whom are colored ministers 
of exalted standing, who would honor any pulpit in America. When 
those who are not church members are added to the above, it will 
make at least two millions of slaves in regular attendance on divine 
worship," pp. 108 — 110. 

To these specimens of the reverend gentleman's veracity, we 
add one of his refinement. Addressing, in his book, by name, 
two anti-slavery writers at the North, he tells them — 

" Bring forward your son, out with your daughter, and either shall 
have an Angola negro before night," p. 140. 

As the whole number of slaves, including children, at the last 
census, was rather less than three millions, and at the least two 
millions of these are in regular attendance on divine worship, it 
must be confessed that the slaves are the greatest church-going 
people in the world. " Happy are the people that are in such 
a case." But before indulging in our pious gratulations, let us 
attend to the esoteric teaching on the subject of slave religion. 
In a sermon preached before an association of planters in Geor- 
gia, by the Rev. C. C. Jones, and published at Savannah, 1831, 
we have the following confessions : 

" The description which the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Ro- 
mans, gives of the heathen world, will apply, with very little abatement, 
to our negroes.^ They lie, blaspheme, are slothful, envious, malicious, 
inventors of evil things, deceivers, covenant breakers, implacable, un- 
merciful. Numbers of the negroes do not go to church, and cannot 



464 jay's works. 

tell who Jesus Christ is, nor have they ever heard so much as the ten 

commandments read and explained Generally speaking, 

they appear to be -without hope, and without God in the world — A 

NATION OF HEATHEN IN OUR VERY MIDST." 

The report of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, made 
5th of December, 1833, and published at Charleston, makes the 
following revelations : 

" Who would credit it, that in these years of revival and benevolent 
effort, in this Christian republic, there are over two millions of 
human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some respects in a 
worse condition ? From long-continued and close observation, we 
believe that their moral and religious condition is such that they may 
justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will 
bear a comparison with heathen in any part of the world. ... It 
is universally the fact throughout the slave-holding States, that either 
custom or law prohibits them the acquisition of letters, and conse- 
quently they can have no access to the Scriptures In the 

vast field, extending from an entire State beyond the Potomac to the 
Sabine river, and from the Atlantic to the Ohio, there are, to the best 
of our knowledge, not twelve men exclusively devoted to the religious 
instruction of the negroes. As to ministers of their own color, they 
are destitute, infinitely, both in point of numbers and qualifications, to 
say nothing of the fact that such a ministry is looked upon with dis- 
trust, and discountenanced. But do not the negroes have access to 

the Gospel through the stated ministry of the whites ? No 

We venture the assertion, that if we take the whole number of minis- 
ters in the slave-holding States, but a very small portion pay any atten- 
tion to them The negroes have no regular and efficient 

ministry ; as a matter of course, no churches ; neither is there suffi- 
cient room in the white churches for their accommodation. We know 
of but Jive churches in the slave-holding States built expressly for their 
use. . . . We may now inquire if they enjoy the privileges of the 
Gospel in private, in their own houses, or on their own plantations. 
Again we return a negative answer. They have no Bibles to read 
at their own fireside, they have no family altars ; and when in affliction 
and sickness, or death, they have no minister to address to them the 
consolations of the Gospel, nor to bury them with solemn and appro- 
priate services." 

Certainly the reverend President of " Centenary College, 
Clinton, Mississippi," and the Synod of South Carolina and 
Georgia, differ somewhat as to the religious character of tivo 
millions of slaves. According to the one, they are regular at- 
tendants on divine worship ; according to the other, they are 
" in the condition of heathen." According to the one, among 
the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist slaves 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 465 

there are " colored ministers of exalted standing, who would 
honor any pulpit in America." According to the other — " As 
to ministers of their own color, they are destitute infinitely, both 
in point of number and qualifications." 

A writer in the Charleston Courier tells us, " There are up- 
wards of 20,000 colored persons in Charleston and on the Neck, 
and there are but inadequate accommodations and opportunities 
for their attendance on the preaching of the Word of God, by 
admission to galleries in some of our churches ; there being many 
which do not even vochsafe them that privilege." A late writer 
in the Charleston Mercury, opposing a proposition to form, colored 
congregations, remarks : 

" It has been the policy of this State, not to admit the teaching to 
the slaves, either of reading or writing ; we all know why this is so. 
No matter from what combination of causes, the result has been pro- 
duced, in this part of the country, ' for weal or for wo,' our lives and 
fortunes are indissolubly connected with the preservation of that insti- 
tion. It needed no great scope of argument to satisfy those who framed 
our laws, that the expansion of intellect, the hundred influences which 
education generates, would be very inconsistent with habits of obedi- 
ence, which was the corner-stone of the institution." 

Let us now apply this double doctrine to the case of the slave 
Christians of Scuppernong, and see whether Ave cannot find 
some esoteric revelations which might cause the Bishop of Ox- 
ford to pause a little before he asks pardon for his reproof of 
the American church. 

It seems that, during Lent, you visited certain plantations 
" which had been without stated ministerial services for the 
greater part of the year." In the midst of this destitution of 
the means of grace, you appeared on the ground, and " com- 
menced," — for it appears you had no time to finish, — "a new 
course of oral catechetical instruction to the servants." How 
far the servants were permitted to listen to your daily lectures 
and services, and whether they enjoyed the oral instruction on 
other days than the Sabbath, is uncertain, since no mention is 
made of the suspension of labor on the plantations, except on 
Good Friday. However this may be, certain results are re- 
corded. You saw masters and servants standing side by side in 

40 



4G6 jay's works, 

the holy services of Passion week. Probably the church in 
which you officiated had no galleries, and hence when the ser- 
vices required the congregation to stand, you saw the masters 
and slaves standing on the same floor. Had you seen them sit- 
ting together in the same pews, we could better have understood 
their position, and should have shared your surprise. On Good 
Friday, all secular labor was suspended. This, of course, was 
not the effect of the oral instruction to the servants, but an act 
of civility on the part of the masters to the bishop, who had 
made the visit by particular request. On this day, you saw the 
" cleanly -clad multitude thronging the house of prayer, to pay 
homage to a crucified Saviour." It was far easier to see a large 
gang of slaves standing in the church, than to see the motive 
which brought them there. It is not to be supposed that, during 
the bishop's visit, the slaves were told to throw down their hoes, 
and put on clean chothes, merely to spend Good Friday in 
dancing, or roaming over the plantations. Whatever may have 
been the piety of the " multitude," they were most unquestion- 
ably ordered to go to church, and a sound flogging would have 
been the fate of every truant. On the blessed Easter morn you 
behold " the master with his goodly number of servants kneeling 
with reverent hearts and devout thanksgivings, to take the bread 
of life at the same altar." As no Protestant Episcopal church 
has as yet more than one altar or communion table, the commu- 
nicants, as a matter of course, knelt at the same. As the ser- 
vice was performed by you, it was of course performed with 
rubrical correctness ; and, not being interrupted with narratives 
of personal experiences and feelings, it is not very obvious how 
you made the discovery that the goodly number of servants knelt 
with reverent hearts and devout thanksgivings. 

You natter yourself, sir, that if these sights had been witnessed 
by some of " our brethren from other lands " (probably North- 
ern and English abolitionists,) they would have changed their 
note of wailing over imaginary suffering into the jubilant chant, 
'< Happy are the people that are in such a case ; yea, blessed 
are the people who have the Lord for their God ! ! " Be assured, 
sir, that unless they very imperfectly understood the subject, no 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 467 

such exclamations would be prompted by their hearts, nor escape 
from their lips. They would not regard as happy the masters 
who compelled a goodly number of their fellow Christians to 
toil for them without wages ; and the more easily to keep them in 
subjection, prevented the expansion of their intellect, and denied 
them the common rights of humanity, and particularly that of 
searching the Scriptures. They would not regard the multitude 
of slaves happy, because excused from labor on Good Friday, 
while toiling under the lash every other week day in the year ; 
nor, finally, would they pronounce masters and slaves happy, 
merely because they were seen to receive the communion on 
Easter Sunday. 

Most true it is, that he who has the Lord for his God is 
blessed, whether he bleeds under the lash of the slave-driver, or 
expires a martyr at the stake ; and equally true is it, that his 
blessedness affords no justification to his brother for treating him 
as a beast of burden, or offering his life a sacrifice to religious 
intolerance. No Christian will deny the power of the Holy 
Spirit to penetrate the gloomy prison house of southern bondage, 
and to enlighten, sanctify, and save its miserable inmates. But 
the blessings of grace, as of providence, are ordinarily bestowed 
in return for the use of appointed means ; and where those 
means are withheld, or partially applied, or grossly perverted, 
other evidence may justly be required, that the slave has made 
the Lord his God, than the simple fact that he is seen to receive 
the communion in his master's church, and in his company. It 
is somewhat questionable whether your spirit would have been 
equally refreshed at the sight of a multitude of Presbyterian, 
Baptist, or Methodist slaves, receiving the communion from the 
hands of a minister destitute of Episcopal ordination ; or 
whether you would have been equally assured of their blessed- 
ness. Yet you well know, sir, that in the choice of their church 
and creed the slaves are for the most part passive ; and that, had 
the Scuppernong communicants been sent to auction on Easter 
Monday, they would each thenceforth have worshipped in the 
place and manner directed by " the highest bidder." 

The Southern churches number their slave communicants by 



468 jay's works. 

thousands ; but profession is not principle ; and in all ages and 
countries, there has ever been a ready conformity to the religion 
of the ruling despot. Where the slave makes no religious 
profession, the cause is for the most part to be found in the in- 
difference of the master. 

The esoteric teaching on this subject is not calculated to inspire 
very strong confidence in slave piety. In an account of the 
" Intended Insurrection," published by the authorities of Clrarles- 
ton, 1822, it is stated, that of those executed several had been 
" class-leaders." " Jack Green was a preacher ; Billy Palmer 
exceedingly pious, and a communicant of the church of his 
master ; Jack Purcell, no less devout." The ensuing year, the 
Rev. Dr. Dalcho, assistant minister of St. Michael's church, 
Charleston, published a pamphlet in vindication of slavery, but 
had the decency to omit his name on the title-page.* Alluding 
to the late conspirators, he says : 

" I write, with feelings of the deepest regret, that some of the con- 
spirators were preachers, class-leaders, and communicants ; thus veri- 
fying the truth of a remark which teachers have too often occasion to 
make, that there it little confidence to be placed in the 
religious professions of negroes. I speak generally. Much 
animal excitement may be, and oftentimes is, produced, where but little 
real devotion is felt in the heart. I sympathize most sincerely with the 
very respectable and pious clergyman, whose heart must still bleed at 
the recollection that his confidential class-leader, but a week or two 
before his just conviction, had received the communion of the Lord's 
Supper from his hand. This wretch had been brought up in his pas- 
tor's family, and was treated with the same Christian attention as was 
shown to their children." f 

Says the venerable and Rev. Dr. Nelson, a native of Tennes- 
see, and formerly President of Marion College, Missouri : 

" The concentrated recollection of thirty years furnishes me with 
three instances only, where I could say I have reason, from the known 
walk of that slave, to believe him or her a sincere Christian." 

The Rev. C. C. Jones, probably better acquainted with the 

* Practical Considerations, founded on the Scriptures, relative to the Slave 
Population of South Carolina. By a South Carolinian, 
t But the -wretch was the slave of his pastor. 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 469 

religious character of the slaves than any other southern minis- 
ter, says, in his sermon already quoted : 

" Of the professors of religion among them, there are many 
of questionable piety, who occasion the different churches great trouble 
in discipline, for they are extremely ignorant, and frequently are guilty 
of the grossest vices." 

After such facts and confessions, you cannot, sir, be surprised, 
should your brethren from other lands be a little sceptical about 
the " reverent hearts and devout thanksgivings " of the goodly 
number of the Scuppernong negroes. But, alas ! sir, there are 
indeed far weightier reasons than these facts and confessions, to 
justify such scepticism. 

The very peculiar character of that Christianity which is 
offered to the slaves is well calculated to insure its rejection by 
them. Love is the great motive, argument, and command of 
the Gospel. God is love. God. so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten Son. We love God, because he first 
loved us. Love one another, so shall all men know that ye are 
my disciples. One is your Father, which is in heaven ; all ye 
are brethren. When we are cruelly and unjustly treated, we 
know that we suffer in violation of the precepts of our religion, 
and we are taught to pray for the offender, that his sin may be 
forgiven. Far different is the religion offered to the slave. He 
is instructed that the common Father of all has authorized a 
portion of his children to convert the others into articles of mer- 
chandise. The favored children, moreover, are permitted to 
withhold from their brethren the revelation made by their Heav- 
enly Father, and which he has declared is able to make them 
wise unto salvation. The slave also learns, by experience, that 
to him is denied the marriage and the parental relations — blessed 
boons, expressly conferred by God upon others. While this 
religion calls on some to be diligent in business, that they may 
provide for their families, he is informed that this same religion 
requires from him unceasing and unrepining toil, for the sole 
benefit of his happier brethren. A future life is indeed revealed 
to him, and he is promised happiness in another world, on 
certain conditions ; among which are, always, obedience to his 
40* 



470 jay's works. 

master, and refusal to escape from bondage. The slave is taught 
that those privations and sufferings which he endures, and which 
outrage his moral sense, are in perfect accordance with the pre- 
cepts of his religion ; and that to pray for the forgiveness of his 
oppressor would be but to insult that Divine Majesty which 
clothed the oppressor with power, and authorized him to use it 
in crushing his weaker brother. 

Such is the Christianity presented to the slave — a religion 
which his own consciousness must tell him is partial, severe, and 
unjust, nullifying in the case of the black man the holy and 
benevolent precepts it gives to his white brother, and sanctifying 
a system of cruelty and oppression, which every faculty of his 
soul tells him is wrong. 

And by whom is this species of Christianity received, beyond 
the slave-region ? Almost the whole of Christendom rejects it 
as spurious. The wise and good of all countries abhor it. The 
bishops of the Church of England denounce it. Not a bishop 
at home, in a free State, dare give it his sanction. And yet it 
is supposed that the poor slave, who of all others has the most 
reason to reject a religion which sinks him below humanity, will 
cordially embrace it. 

Not only is this religion necessarily x'epugnant to the natural 
moral sense of the slaves, but the very persons who preach it 
must be objects of their distrust and aversion. No minister 
addresses the slaves on a plantation, but by permission of the 
master ; nor is any slave ordinarily admitted to Christian ordi- 
nances, but by the same permission, expressed or implied. Hence 
the minister virtually addresses the slave as the agent of his 
master, and, instead of letting the slave perceive that he sym- 
pathizes in his sufferings, and laments and condemns his oppres- 
sion, he labors to impress him with the belief that God Almighty 
sanctions the servitude beneath which he groans, and requires 
from him a ready submission to it. Is it in human nature that 
such shepherds should be loved by the flock ? 

No clergyman at the South has probably labored more zeal- 
ously in behalf of the spiritual interests of the slaves than the 
Rev. C. C. Jones ; but, unhappily, he has labored as the agent 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 471 

of the masters, and the supporter of human bondage"; and what 
has been his success ? Listen to his story, as related in the 
Tenth Report of the Association for the Religious Instruction of 
the Negroes in Liberty county, Georgia : 

" I was preaching," says lie, " to a large congregation, on the Epistle 
to Philemon; and when I insisted on fidelity and obedience as Christian 
virtues in servants, and upon the authority of Paul, condemned the 
practice of running away, one-half of my audience deliberately 
rose up and walked off with themselves ; and those who remained looked 
anything but satisfied with the preacher or his doctrine. After dismis- 
sion, there was no small stir among them ; some solemnly declared that 
there was no such Epistle in the Bible ; others, that it was not the 
Gospel ; others, that I preached to please the masters ; others, that they 
did not care if they never heai'd me preach again," p. 24. 

Had Mr. Jones been untrammelled by the theory of slavery 
and the interests of the masters, he would have preached a very 
different sermon, and experienced very different treatment. 
After reading the Epistle, he would have told his audience that 
the text left it wholly uncertain whether Onesimus was a slave or 
a hired servant ; that, in either case, the apostle had no power to 
compel him to return to his master ; and that, of course, his 
return was wholly voluntary ; that, so far from being in dis- 
grace, or liable to arrest on his journey, he was sent by the 
apostle as " a faithful and beloved brother," a messenger to a 
Christian church (Col. iv, 9) ; that, if he was in fact a slave, 
then the apostle demanded his immediate emancipation, by re- 
quiring his master to receive him, " not now as a slave, but 
above a slave, a brother beloved." The preacher might then 
have pressed upon his hearers, from the injunctions of the 
apostle, the duties of forgiveness and kindness. Such a sermon 
would have recommended Christianity to the slaves, and exposed 
the preacher to be lynched by the masters. 

In 1792-'93, a number of American citizens were held as 
slaves in Algiers, and by as valid and sacred a title as that by 
which any slave is held in North Carolina. Indeed, these Amer- 
ican slaves were held by precisely the same title, the fortune of 
war, as were a great portion of the Roman slaves, whose bond- 
age you and Bishop Freeman insist was approved by Christ and 



472 jay's works. 

his apostles. These slaves, one hundred and five in number, in 
a petition to Congress, declared : " We are employed daily at 
the most laborious work, without respect of persons, and shut up 
at night in two slave-prisons" What would have been the 
feelings of these slaves towards an English clergyman, in the 
pay of the Dey, who, with his permission, should have preached 
to them from the Epistle to Philemon, urging upon them fidelity 
and obedience to their Algerine masters as Christian duties, and 
assuring them, on the authority of St. Paul, of the great sin 
they would commit in attempting to escape from their " slave- 
prisons ? " 

Mr. Jones has prepared a catechism for the slaves. In this 
manual of religious instruction, they are asked, " Is it right for 
the servant to run away ? or is it right to harbor a runaway ? " 
To this question, the slaves are required to respond an emphatic 
" No." 

Is there a slave, is there a white man, who believes that the 
Rev. C. C. Jones, if, through some misfortune or violence, he 
should be reduced to bondage in Russia or Turkey, would not, 
in spite of his catechism, embrace the first favorable opportunity 
" to run away ? " or, if he could not run away himself, that he 
would be restrained by scruples of conscience from harboring a 
fellow-countryman, who had partially succeeded in making his 
escape ? Yet the wretched slaves are required by their reli- 
gious teachers to believe that God requires them to remain vol- 
untarily in a state of ignorance and degradation, and even to 
refuse their aid to their wives, children and friends, who are 
endeavoring to recover their liberty ! Such a doctrine is alone 
sufficient to give the negroes a disgust to the religion of which 
they are assured it forms a part. And now let me ask, Who 
believes or acknowledges this doctrine, beyond the slave-region ? 
Is there a minister of Christ, except among the slave-holders, 
who would so far expose his sacred character to public abhor- 
rence, as to betray a fugitive slave to the kidnappers ? Who 
thinks it a sin at the North or in Europe to harbor a runaway ? 
Who, at the Nortb, except here and there a needy attorney, 
policeman, or a merchant ready to barter his character for 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 473 

southern custom, is vile enough to carry into practice the doc- 
trine of Mr. Jones's negro catechism, and bewray him that wan- 
dereth, or refuse to hide the outcasts, or to be a covert to them 
from the face of the spoiler ? 

Not only is Christianity presented to the slaves by its minis- 
ters in "an odious and disgusting form, but these very ministers 
are perceived by the slaves to be the agents of the masters, and 
to preach to "please them" and are themselves almost univer- 
sally owners of human beings, buying and selling men, women, 
and children. Is it possible that such men can be honored, and 
trusted, and beloved, by the slaves, as their spiritual teachers, 
friends, and guides ? 

But, alas ! Christianity is rendered still more repulsive to the 
slave by the fact that not only do its teachers make merchandise 
of their brethren in Christ, but that organized churches are not 
unfrequently 

" Christian brokers in the trade of blood," 

appropriating the profits of the traffic to the support of the priest 
and the temple ! 

A fugitive slave told his friends at the North that he had 
ceased receiving the Lord's Supper in the church to which he 
had been attached, because the church had sold his brother to 
pay for their communion plate ; and " I could not bear," said he, 
" to go forward and receive the communion from vessels which 
were the purchase of my brother's blood." 

"We have no proof of the truth of this anecdote, but we have 
most abundant evidence of its credibility. Says the Rev. J, 
Cable, in a printed letter of the 20th March, 1846 : 

"I have lived eight years in a slave State (Virginia), and received 
theological education at the Union Theological Seminary near Hamp- 
den Sydney College. Those "who know anything about slavery, know 
the worst kind is jobbing slavery — that is, hiring out slaves from year to 
year, while the master is not present to protect them. It is the interest 
of the one who hires them to get the worth of his money out of them, 
and the loss is the master's, if they die. What shocked me more than 
anything else, was the CHURcn engaging in this jobbing of slaves. The 
college church which I attended, held slaves enough to pay the pastor, 
Mr. Stanton, one thousand dollars a year ; of which the church mem- 
bers, as I understood, did not pay a cent. The slaves, who had been 



474 jay's works. 

left to tlie church by some pious mother in Israel, Lad increased so as to 
be a large and increasing fund. These were hired out on Christmas 
day of each year — the day on which they celebrate the birth of our 
Saviour — to the highest bidder. These worked hard the whole year 
to pay the pastor $1,000, and it was left to the caprice of the employers 
whether they ever heard one sermon. Since the abolitionists have 
made so much noise about the connection of the church with slavery, 
the Rev. Elisha Balenter informed me the church has sold this prop- 
erty, and put the money into other stock. There were four churches 
near the college that supported the pastor, in whole or in part, in the 
same way, viz.: Cumberland church, John Kirk, pastor; Briney 
church, Wm. Plummer, pastor (since Dr. P., of Richmond) ; Buffalo 
church, Mr. Cochran, pastor ; Pisgah church, near the Peaks of Otter, 
J. Mitchell, pastor." 

The Rev. Mr. Paxton, a Virginian, and once a slave-holder, 
states, in his " Letters on Slavery," that the church in Virginia, 
of which he was pastor, owned seventy slaves, and that his 
salary was chiefly derived from the hire of their labor. 

In 1832, Mrs. Ann Pray, of Georgia, left a legacy of certain 
slaves to the American Missionary Board of Commissioners — 
a legacy very properly declined by the Board. 

"A prime gang of ten negroes, accustomed to the culture of 
cotton and provisions, belonging to the Independent Church, in 
Christ Church parish," was advertised for sale in the Charleston 
Courier of 12th February, 1835. 

In the Savannah Republican, 23d March, 1845, C. O'Neal, 
sheriff, advertised eight slaves for sale for cash, to satisfy a 
mortgage in favor of "The Board of Directors of the Theologi- 
cal Seminary of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia" 

So it seems the Seminary loans its money on the security of 
a certain amount of human flesh, and this under the direction of 
the very Synod whose report " on the religious instruction of the 
colored population " w r e have already quoted. Deeply are these 
pious Christians exercised in their minds about the heathenism 
of their brethren whom they are selling for cash, to educate 
young gentlemen for the ministry ! 

The " Spirit of Missions" some time since informed its readers, 
that " the Bishop of Georgia, in his Montpelier Institution, is 
testing the sufficiency of slave-labob to support it." It is to 
be hoped Bishop Elliott will before long favor the public with 
the result of his interesting and very Christian experiment. 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 475 

In the southern church, moreover, the desire for the salvation 
of the negroes is in entire subserviency to the supposed interests 
of the masters. The New Orleans Picayune of 16th August, 
1841, has the following: 

" Chauneey B. Black was brought before Recorder Baldwin, charged 
with tampering with slaves. It was proved that he was seen con- 
versing with a number of them in the street ; that he asked them if 
they could read and write, and if they would like a Bible. This was 
the amount of the testimony against him. In palliation of his conduct, 
it was shown that he was a regularly appointed agent of the Bible So- 
ciety in New Orleans, to distribute the Bible to such as would accept 
of it. The Society, however, disclaimed having the most distant inten- 
tion of giving the Scriptures to slaves ; and it was said Black had ex- 
ceeded his commission in offering it. But as it appeared to be a mis- 
understanding on his part, and not intentional interference with the 
peculiar institution, he was discharged with a caution not to repeat his 
offence." 

Now hear the New Orleans Presbytery, in their Report of 
1846: 

"There are within the bounds of the presbytery at least 100,000 
colored persons, most of whom are slaves. It is a lamentable fact, that 
by far the greater part are famishing and j)erishing for the bread of life." 

"With what ineffable scorn must the slaves regard such lamen- 
tations over their famine for the bread of life, from the lips of 
men who have not the most distant intention of giving the Scrip- 
tures to slaves ! 

The Southern Religious Telegraph had opened its columns to 
a series of papers in behalf of Christianizing the slaves. Some 
of the Virginians became alarmed, and forthwith the obsequious 
editor announces : 

"At the suggestion of some of our fellow-citizens, who regard the 
discussion of the religious instruction of slaves inexpedient at this time, 
we cheerfully comply with their wishes, and will discontinue for the 
pi'esent the publication of articles on the subject." 

Says the Georgia Conference Missionary Society, in its Re- 
port for 1838: 

" Our missions among the whites have shared in this season of re- 
! freshing from the presence of the Lord. The missions to the slaves 
have not been distinguished by so great a multiplication of church 



476 jay's works. 

members, chiefly because the mode of operation is essentially different. 
It is deemed imprudent to foster among the colored people those great 
excitements which minister so powerfully to the building up of our so- 
cieties among the whites." 

Here we have an avowal, that, from prudential reasons — that 
is, from regard to the security of slave property — the slaves 
have been deprived by these Methodist missionaries of certain 
auxiliaries supposed to be highly conducive to salvation. 

In 1835, the slave-holders of Charleston, having sacked the 
Post Office, and riotously destroyed some anti-slavery papers 
found in it, called a public meeting, for the avowed purpose of 
controlling the freedom of the mail. The Charleston Courier, 
giving the particulars of the meeting, announced that 

" The clergy of all denominations attended in a body, lending their 
sanction to the proceedings, and adding by their presence to the im- 
pressive character of the scene." 

The sacrifice of decency in attending this lawless meeting, 
was not the only one which the Charleston clergy offered on the 
altar of slavery. The slave-holders resolved : 

"That the thanks of this meeting are due to the reverend gentlemen 
of the clergy in this city who have so promptly and so effectually re- 
sponded to the public sentiment, by suspending their schools, in which 
the/r<?e colored population were taught; and that this meeting deem it 
a patriotic action, worthy of all praise, and proper to be imitated by 
the teachers of similar schools throughout the State." 

It is quite in character, that the Charleston slave-holders 
should deem it a patriotic act in the ministers of the Lord Jesus 
Christ to drive black children from their Sunday schools ; but 
what judgment will be formed of these pusillanimous clergymen 
by Him who has commanded his servants not to fear what man 
can do unto them ? Most truly says the Bishop of Oxford : 

" It is a time for martyrdom, and the American church has scarcely 
produced a single confessor." 

There is still another to be added to the formidable obstacles 
already enumerated, to the conversion of the slaves. Their very 
position compels them to live in constant violation of many of 
the imperative obligations of Christianity. 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVE3. 477 

The slave is a participator of that humanity with which the 
Saviour clothed himself at his incarnation. As a man, therefore, 
he is placed by God in various relations, imposing corresponding 
duties ; as a son, he is bound to honor his parents ; . as a brother, 
to love his kindred, and relieve their distresses ; as a husband, 
to cleave to his wife till parted by death ; as a father, to provide 
for the sustenance and education of his offspring. But the law 
of the land has nullified that of God, and insulates the slave 
from all the relations of humanity, and abrogates the obligations 
resulting from them. Yet the southern priesthood, in the name 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, give their sanction to this law, re- 
ducing to chattels the very beings for whom He died. Well, 
indeed, has a foreign author remarked : 

" Whatever may have been the unutterable wickedness of slavery 
in the West India Islands, there it never was baptized in the Redeem- 
er's hallowed name, and its corruptions were not concealed in the garb 
of religion. That acme of piratical turpitude was reserved for the pro- 
fessed disciples of Jesus in America." 

You flatter yourself, sir, that, could the Bishop of Oxford 
have witnessed the services at Scuppernong which you have de- 
scribed, his views of American slavery would have undergone 
such a total change, that he would have asked instant pardon of 
the American church, for rebuking her subserviency to this ter- 
rific institution. Having said nothing of the church that was 
not literally true, and substantiated by most abundant proof, the 
bishop could have had no motive or excuse for asking pardon. 
So far from having his abhorrence of slavery diminished by the 
scenes on which you dwell with so much complacency, he would 
have found in them new proofs of the degeneracy of the church, 
and of the corrupting influence of human bondage. 

With what indignation would your good brother have wit- 
nessed the masters bringing their fellow-men to the house of 
prayer, kneeling with them at the Lord's table, partaking with 
them of the emblems of the Saviour's body and blood, the next 
day driving them to the field as the ox to the furrow, and per- 
haps the day after tearing them from their wives and children, 
and selling them to the dealer in human flesh, to be conveyed to 
distant markets ! 
41 



478 jay's works. 

Think you, sir, the bishop would have felt very penitent for 
his condemnation of slavery, had he, on leaving Scuppemong, 
repaired to Wilmington, still in your diocese, and there recog- 
nized some of the Easter Sunday communicants among the 
manacled passengers described in the following letter ? 

" As I went on board the steamboat at Wilmington, I noticed eight 
colored men, handcuffed and chained together in pairs, four women, and 
eight or ten children — all standing together in the bow of the boat, in 
charge of a man standing near them. Coming near them, I perceived 
that they were all greatly agitated, and, on inquiring, I found that they 
were all slaves who had been born and raised in North Carolina, and 
had just been sold to a speculator, who was now taking them to the 
Charleston market. Upon the shore was a number of colored persons, 
women and children, waiting the departure of the boat. My attention 
was particularly arrested by two colored females, who stood together 
a little distance from the crowd, and upon whose countenances was 
depicted the keenest sorrow. As the last bell was tolling, I saw the 
tears gushing from their eyes — they were the wives of two of the men in 
chains. There, too, were mothers and sisters, weeping at the depart- 
ure of their sons and brothers ; and there, too, were fathers, taking the 
last look of their ivives and children. My eye now turned to those in 
the boat, and, although I had tried to control my feelings amidst my 
sympathy for those on shore, I could conceal them no more, and found 
myself literally weeping with those that wept. I stood near them, 
when one of the husbands saw his wife on the shore wave her hand for 
the last time ; his manly efforts to restrain his feelings gave way, and, 
fixing his watery eyes upon her, he exclaimed, ' This is the most dis- 
tressing thing of all — my dear wife and children, farewell ! ' Of the 
poor women on board, three of them had husbands whom they left behind. 
Sailing down Cape Fear River twenty-five miles we touched at the 
little village of Smithport, on the south side of the river. It was at 
this place that one of the slaves lived, and here were his wife and five 
children. While at work on Monday last, his purchaser took him away 
from his family, carried him in chains to Wilmington, where he re- 
mained in jail. As we approached the wharf, a flood of tears burst 
from his eyes. The boat stopped but a moment, and, as she left, he 
espied his wife on the stoop of a house some rods from the shore, and 
with one hand, which was not in the handcuff, he pulled off* his old 
hat, and, waving it towards her, he exclaimed, ' Farewell ! ' After a 
few moments' silence, conflicting passions seemed to tear open his 
breast, and he exclaimed, ' What have I done, that I should suffer this ? I 
Oh ! my wife and children — I want to live no longer ! ' " Christian 
Advocate and Journal. 

And is this most accursed traffic in the sheep of your flock an | 
" imaginary suffering ? " 
Not contented with lauding the blessedness of southern sla- 1] 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 479 

very, you proceed to taunt Great Britain with her factory sys- 
tem, and to sneer at your brethren of the mother church for 
riveting such a system on their land. A vast amount of sym- 
pathy is constantly expended by the dealers in human flesh on 
the English poor ; and he who, without compunction, sends a 
mother to market, or ploughs her back with the lasb, finds his 
bowels of compassion yearning over the " cruel oppressions " of 
a factory child on the other side of the Atlantic ! 

It was the declaration of the Almighty, in reference to his 
own peculiar people, " the poor shall never cease out of the 
land " — a prediction virtually repeated by our Saviour, and as 
literally fulfilled in regard to every other land as it was in Pal- 
estine. No system of government, no form of religion, has ever 
caused the poor to cease out of the land. Much poverty, no 
doubt, springs from bad government and wicked wars ; but a 
far larger portion from the vice, improvidence, indolence, and 
misfortune, incident to humanity. Owing to the corruption of 
our nature, poverty often invites oppression ; which no govern- 
ment, however paternal, can prevent. In our own land, we have 
armies of paupers, exclusive of nearly three millions of our 
fellow-countrymen, who are reduced by law to absolute penury. 
Yet this is the country, above all others, in which extent of ter- 
ritory, cheapness of land, and demand for labor, should secure, 
if possible, a competency for all. Is it, then, sir, a matter of 
surprise, that poverty should abound in England, where a popu- 
lation, nearly equal to that of the whole United States, is crowd- 
ed into a space less than your own diocese ? Owing to British 
industry and enterprise, the wages of labor are higher in Eng- 
land than in any other part of Europe ; and, owing' to the free- 
dom of the press and of the government, the English poor are 
probably the least oppressed of any in the Eastern World. And 
yet, of all the paupers of Europe, Asia, and Africa, it is only 
over those of England that the slave-holders raise " the note of 
wailing." 

As you thought proper to taunt the Bishop of Oxford with 
" the cruel oppressions of the factory system," it might have 
been expected that you would sjyecify the oppi'essions to which 



480 jay's works. 

you refer, that it might be seen whether, like the abominations 
of North Carolina slavery, they were authorized by law, and 
sanctioned by bishops, or proceeded solely from the cupidity 
and cruelty of individuals. 

It is also to be wished, that you had condescended to con- 
trast the English and American factory systems, that we might 
know wherein we differ. Such a comparison would not proba- 
bly result as much to our credit as you suppose. The two 
systems differ — first, in the rate of wages, arising from the dif- 
ference in the demand and supply of labor in the two countries ; 
and, secondly, in the paternal solicitude of the British Parlia- 
ment to protect juvenile operatives from the avarice of their 
employers, and in the utter indifference of our republican legisla- 
tures on the subject. You speak of English churchmen helping 
to rivet the factory system on their land. It is to be regretted, 
sir, that you deal so largely in generalities, and are so averse to 
particular statements. How and when have English churchmen 
riveted the factory system on their land? Has any presbyter 
of the Established Church lauded it as a divine institution, and 
received a mitre in return, through the influence of the cotton 
spinners ? Has any bishop, in a charge to his clergy, attempted 
to vindicate the system against the reproaches of the Americans, 
by pronouncing the sufferings of the operatives " imaginary ? " 
or has he represented a cotton mill as a little heaven upon earth, 
because labor was suspended in it on Good Friday, and because 
some of the hands partook of the sacrament on Easter Sunday ? 

It is true the English bishops, as members of the House of 
Lords, have participated in the enactment of laws relating to 
factories. How far such laws authorize the " cruel oppressions " 
to which you refer, you do not tell us ; but something of their 
character may be learned from the following official notice : 

" All the clauses of the Factories Regulation Act being now in full 
operation, the inspectors of factories deem it expedient, in order to re- 
move any doubts as to the employment of children subject to restricted 
hours of labor, to issue the following Notice : 

"1. No child under nine years of age can be employed in any cotton, 
flax, or wool factory. 

" 2. No child between nine and thirteen years of age can be employed 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 481 

.or even allowed to remain in such factory, without the certificate of a 
physician or surgeon, countersigned by a magistrate or an inspector of 
factories, certifying in the form set forth in the 13th section, the 
strength and appearance of such child. 

" 3. No child between nine and thirteen years of age can be em- 
ployed in such factory, without producing Aveekly a schoolmaster's cer- 
tificate, that the child lias, for two hours at least, for six out of seven 
days of the week next preceding, attended his school, excepting in 
eases of sickness, to be certified in such manner as such inspector may 
appoint ; and in case of any holiday, and in case of absence from any 
other cause allowed by such inspector, or by any justice of the peace 
in the absence of the inspector. 

" 4. No child between nine and thirteen years of age can be em- 
ployed or even allowed to remain in such factory longer than forty- 
eight hours in any one week, and not more than nine hours in any one 
day. 

" 5. No child under thirteen years of age can be employed in any 
silk mill more than ten hours in one day. 

" The above, and all other provisions of the Factories Regulation 
Act, together with all orders and regulations issued by the inspectors, 
in their several districts, under the authority of this act, must be 
strictly observed, in the mills and factories subject to the said act. 

Leonard Horner, 
Thomas Jones Howard. 
Robert S. Saundeus, 

Inspectors of Factories. 

"Whitehall, June 22, 183G." 

It was, sir, exceedingly imprudent to provoke a comparison 
between the oppressions of the slave and the factory systems. 
The oppressions of a system are of course such as the system 
authorizes. What is the power, sir, which the slave system 
authorizes you to exert over your slaves ? Chief Justice Hen- 
derson, of your own diocese, thus summarily answers the ques- 
tion : " The master has an almost absolute control over the body 
and mind of his slave. The master's toitt is the slave's will." * 
This, surely, sir, is pretty ample authority to be confided, even 
to a Christian bishop. But let us descend to particulars, and 
pursue the comparison which you have so rashly introduced — 
let us contrast the powers vested in you, by the laws of North 
Carolina, over your slave, with the powers over his operative 
vested by act of Parliament in the English manufacturer. 

1. You may with legal impunity offer your unoffending slave? 

* 2 Devcreaux's North Carolina Reports, -513. 
41* 



482 jay's works. 

whether male or female, any insult or outrage, however gross, 
not extending to life or limb. 

The manufacturer is as responsible in law for an outrage 
committed on his operative, as on any other person. 

2. Tou are restricted by law, under a penalty of two hundred 
dollars, from teaching your slave to read. Statutes of North 
Carolina, 1830. 

Tlie manufacturer is allowed by law to give his operatives any 
instruction they may please to receive ; but he can employ no 
child under thirteen years of age who has not at least two hours 
schooling a day for six days in the week. 

3. Tou may flog your slave at pleasure, with or without 
cause ; and if, instead of standing still under your lash, when 
ordered to do so, he retreats from you, you are authorized, by a 
solemn judicial decision, made in your diocese, to take up your 
gun and shoot iiim.* 

The manufacturer, for shooting his operative under similar 
circumstances, w r ould be convicted of murder, and undoubtedly 
hung. 

4. Tou are permitted by law (Haywood's Manual, 525), to 
keep your slave on one quart of com per day. 

The manufacturer feeds his operative by contract, or the lat- 
ter provides his own food. 

5. Tou are authorized to prevent your slave from receiving 
any religious instruction, and you may also compel him to re- 
ceive just such as you please. 

The manufacturer can exercise no legal authority over the 
conscience of his operative. 

6. Tou may forbid your slave from seeing his wife and chil- 
dren, and may send him to market where and when you think 
proper. 

The manufacturer has no similar privileges. 

7. Tou may, at your own will and pleasure, torment your 
slave by scourging, by imprisonment, by clipping his ears, by 
branding him with a hot iron, by fastening an iron collar about 
his neck, and by the various modes which malignity may devise. 

* Case of the State tw. Man, 1 Dev. Rep., p. 263, N. Carolina, 1829. 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 483 

The manufacturer is responsible to his operative, as well 
as to public justice, for any personal injury he may inflict on 
him. 

8. You are at liberty, if your slave runs away, to pursue him 
with bloodhounds ; and should he be torn by the brutes, you 
would be guiltless — under the slave code. 

The manufacturer, by similar conduct, would subject himself 
to severe punishment. 

9. You are authorized by law, if your slave absconds, and 
you do not know where to find him, to gratify your vengeance 
against him by offering, in the public papers, a reward for his 

MURDER. 

The manufacturer, for such an offer in regard to his operative, 
would be regarded and punished as a villain. 

10. You may compel your slave to toil for you from youth till 
old age, without other compensation than such food and raiment 
and shelter as may be requisite to enable him to labor. 

The manufacturer can obtain the services of no operative ex- 
cept by contract ; and the wages, whether more or less, are such 
as the latter consents to accept. 

11. You are the legal proprietor of every shred of property 
acquired by your slave, by his own industry, by gift, by devise, 
or by accident. If he picks up a sixpence in the street, it is 

YOURS. 

The manufacturer has no claim on his operative, except for 
the labor he has agreed to render for a certain compensation. 

12. The children of your female slave are your property, and 
you may work, flog, or sell them, at will. 

The manufacturer has no authority over the children of his 
operative, except by contract with the parent, and in accordance 
with the requirements of an act of Parliament. 

13. You may compel your slave to toil as many hours in the 
four and twenty, as his physical strength may enable him.* 

The manufacturer is restrained by act of Parliament, from 
exacting more than ten hours labor, for a day's work. 

* The law of South Carolina is more considerate : it allows the master to 
compel his slave to work only fifteen hours a day in the summer, and four- 
teen in winter. 2 Brevard's Digest, 243. 



484 jay's works. 

Verily, sir, the North Carolina Bishop's little finger is thicker 
than the Englishman's loins.* But of course you only vindicate 
slavery in the abstract, not its abuses. Please to recollect, sir, 
that you have given your Episcopal sanction to " slavery as it 
exists at the present day." This, in its most limited sense, 
means slavery as at present established by law. And now, sir, 
will you please to tell us what are the abuses of a legal system 
which takes away an innocent man's liberty, renders him a piece 
of animated merchandise, deprives him of all volition, places 
him entirely at your will, denies him all the fruits of his labor, 
divests him of the character of a son, a husband, and a father, 
and utterly debars him from the pursuit of his own happiness ? 
If in all this there is none other than "imaginary suffering," 
do let us know what you consider the " cruel oppressions of the 
factory system." 

Most dangerous, odious, and corrupting would be your power 
over your slave, even were it intrusted to none other but a 
rigfit reverend fatuer in god ; but, alas ! the power you 

* Whole sheets, nay, a volume might be filled with illustrations of the 
bishop's legal prerogatives. But it is unnecessary to cumber the page with 
proofs of what he will not deny. He will not be rash enough to challenge 
the writer for proofs of the alleged atrocities of the slave laws. To prevent, 
however, a captious objection, it may be well to state, that, strictly, a North 
Carolina slave-holder has not a legal right to offer a reward for the murder of 
his slave, unless he is previously outlawed, which he may be by two justices, 
if he runs away, conceals himself, and, to maintain life, kills a hog, or any 
animal of the cattle kind. Hay wood' s Manual, p. 521. 

In point of fact, it is believed these rewards are generally offered withoiit 
an outlawry ; nor is there the least reason to believe that the omission of this 
formality, in killing a slave, would, in North Carolina, attract any legal ani- 
madversion. We give a few advertisements, from a great mass selected from 
southern papers, for the purpose of showing the putrid state of public opin- 
ion in the slave States. These advertisements are revelations of unconscious 
villany ; and their voluntary publication in the journals of the day indicates 
that the atrocities they disclose are regarded by the community as in accor- 
dance with common usage and conventional propriety. 

J. P. Ashford, in the Natchez Courier of 21st August, 1S3S. — " Run away, a 
negro girl, called Mary ; has a small scar over her eye ; a good many teeth 
missing. The letter A is branded on her cheek andforehead." 

M. Ricks, in the Raleigh Standard (N. C), 18th July, 1838.— "Ran away, 
a negro woman, and two children. A few days before she went off, I burnt 
her with a hot iron, on the left side of her face. I tried to make the letter M." 

A. Ross, in " Charleston (S. C.) Courier," of 182-5. — "Ran away, a negro 
girl, sixteen or seventeen years of age. Lately branded on the left cheek 
thus — R, and a piece taken out of he: ear on the same side. The same letter 
on the inside of her leys." 

T. Engry, in the New Orleans Bee, of 27th October, 1837.—" Ran away, 
negress Caroline; had on a collar with one prong turned down." 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 485 

possess is, in your diocese, a vendible commodity ; and any vile, 
brutal infidel, may, for a little money, or by virtue of a gift or 
devise, acquire the same tremendous legal prerogatives over 
bis slave, as are enjoyed by yourself. 

If slavery be indeed an institution so evidently enjoying the 
divine sanction, that it is presumption to pronounce it wrong, 
it must be a good institution, and Christian benevolence must 
require us to labor for its extension. This duty is indeed zeal- 
ously discharged at present by our southern brethren, but under 
the exoteric plea of " extending the area of human freedom." 
But why mask with a lie a work of love and mercy, which God 
approves ? 

There are considerations connected with the efforts of the 
southern clergy to sustain slavery, which they would do well to 
ponder : If the condition of the slave be, as most of them confess 
it is, generally unfavorable to religious faith and personal holi- 
ness, then there is danger that, at the great day of account, the 
blood of souls will be found on the skirts of those who have 
striven to justify and to perpetuate that condition. 

J. Henderson, in the Grand Gulf (Miss.) Advertiser, of 20th of August, 
1838. — "Han away, a black woman, Betsey; had an iron bar on her right 
leg." 

J. Macoin, in the New Orleans Bee, 11th August, 1838. — " Ran away, the 
Jiegress Fanny ; had on an iron band about her neck." 

T. J. De Tampert, in the Mobile Chronicle, June 15, 1838. — " Han away, a 
negro boy, about twelve years old ; had round his neck a chain dog collar, with 
De Tampert engraven on it. 

Peter Campbell, in the Charleston Courier, February 26, 1836, after describ- 
ing two runaways, adds, " Two hundred dollars will be given for Billy, and 
one hundred dollars for Pompey, if lodged in jail ; or fifty dollars for Billy's 
head." 

W. D. Cobb, in the Newbern (N. C.) Spectator, 2d December, 1836.—'/ 1 
will give the reward of one hundred dollars for the above negroes, to be deliv- 
ered to me, or confined in the jail of Lenoir or Jones county, or for killing 
them so that I can see them." 

Durant H. Rhodes, in the Wilmington (N. C.) Advertiser, 13th July, 1838. 
" Ran away, my negro man, Richard. A reward of twenty-five dollars will 
be given for his apprehension, dead or alive. Satisfactory proof will only be 
required of his being killed." 

Enoch Foy, in the Newbern (N. C.) Spectator, 5th January, 1838. — "Ran 
away, a negro man, Sampson. Should he resist in being taken, so that vio- 
lence is necessary to arrest him, I will not hold any person liable for damages 
should the slave be killed." 

J. McDonald, in the Appalachicola Gazette, 9th May, 1811, advertises 
three runaway slaves, and offers one hundred and fifty dollars "to any one 
who will kill the three, or fifty for either one," 



486 jay's works. 

Every man, without exception, when he makes the case his 
own, anil examines it solely by the light of nature, pronounces 
slavery a sin and a curse. Now, it is very possible that many 
who may be convinced, by the labors of yourself and others, 
that slavery is sanctioned by the Gospel, may also arrive at the 
conclusion that a religion, thus outraging the moral sense im- 
planted in the human heart by the Creator, cannot proceed from 
Him.* 

A portentous infidel philanthropy is rife in the land, false 
and delusive in its professions, and tending in its consequences 
to anarchy and misery. Fonnded not on the love of God, and 
obedience to his commands, but on wild abstract political theo- 
ries, it pretends to seek the happiness of mankind by means 
which can have no influence in purifying the heart, and check- 
ing the progress of vice. Those who watch the signs of the 
times, not from the retirement of their studies, but amid the 
busy haunts of men, know that the conduct of many of the 
clergy has given to this spurious philanthropy a mighty and 
most disastrous impulse.f They are constantly seen tithing 
mint, and anise, and cummin, and all manner of herbs, while 
mercy and justice, so far as regards the colored population, are 
apparently utterly disregarded by them. The public has wit- 
nessed a reverend assembly of divines discussing day after day 
the sinfulness of marrying the sister of a deceased wife, and at 

* Said Mr. Fries, on the floor of Congress, in reference to a southern 
member who had attempted a biblical vindication of slavery : " I wish it to 
be distinctly understood by my constituents and the country, if it (Ameri- 
can slavery) is proved to be a divine institution, sanctioned by the word of 
God, I am an infidel ; but gentlemen must pardon me, if I do not adopt 
their construction of the Bible on this point." 

f This truth is admitted and deplored in a late publication by the Rev. 
Mr. Patton, of Hartford, Conn., entitled, " Pro-Slavery Interpretations of 
the Bible productive of Infidelity." Says the reverend author, "Infidels 
profess to go for a reformation in morals, and they boldly contend that 
Christianity is the chief obstacle in the way of success. They declare that 
the church and the Bible are corrupt on the score of morals, and that so far 
from an argument being derived from that quarter in favor of Christianity, 
the very reverse is true ;" and he quotes the following avowal made by an 
infidel at a recent convention of free-thinkers in New York : " I have done 
with the old arguments against Christianity, and have adopted a more effi- 
cient plan. Now, I work altogether through the moral reformations of the 
day, and through them attack religion, and find I can accomplish more than 
by any other means." 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 487 

last deposing from the ministry a brother who had committed 
the offence. Yet had this same brother bought another man's 
wife, used her as his beast of burden, tore from her her chil- 
dren as they became fit for market, and finally disposed of her 
to some trafficker in human flesh, no ecclesiastical censure 
would have fallen upon him, and he would have been freely 
welcomed to the pulpits of the very men who deposed him. 
We have had pastoral admonitions against dancing, and sermons 
in abundance in favor of human bondage ; nay, right reverend 
fathers in God proclaim, that " no man nor set of men in our 
day, unless they can produce a new revelation from Heaven, 
are entitled to pronounce slavery wrong" and that " slavery as 
it exists at the present day is agreeable to the order of Divine 
Providence." We have Bible Societies for supplying the desti- 
tute, and our churches and halls resound with eulogiums on the 
sacred volume, but scarcely a solitary minister at the South is 
known to suggest, that possibly the laws which virtually forbid 
one-half of the population to read the Bible, may not be acceptable 
to its Divine Author, while the Bible society of the largest city 
in the South disclaims all intention of giving Bibles to slaves. 
Great discussions as well as heats are excited by the question 
whether the word baptize or immerse shall be inserted in Bibles 
intended for heathen in Asia, but the most profound apathy is 
evinced on the question whether any Bible at all shall be given 
to the " nation of heathen in our very midst." Missionaries are 
sent to the ends of the earth, but to three millions of our own 
countrymen groaning in bondage, and sunk in ignorance, is given 
only a little " oral instruction," and of that little, no small por- 
tion is confined to the duty of obedience, and the sin of running 
away. 

Much is said of the importance of a learned ministry, and 
contributions are solicited from the pious, to found and maintain 
theological seminaries. Yet no sooner does a candidate for 
holy orders apply for the instruction thus provided, than rever- 
end and right reverend trustees proceed to inspect the tincture 
of his skin, and unless it rises to the othodox standard, the door 
of the seminary is shut in his face. We have in certain quar- 



488 jay's works. 

ters, line upon line, and precept upon precept, on the necessity, 
the importance, the dignity of apostolic succession. But when 
this " heavenly gift of ministerial commission," is borne by an 
ambassador of Christ not colored like themselves, bishops and 
presbyters are seen treating the "heavenly gift" with contume- 
ly, rarely if ever admitting the possessor into their pulpits, and 
scornfully and lawlessly refusing him a seat in the council of 
the church. 

We have among us, a poor, ignorant, persecuted, but unof- 
fending people. They are the least of Christ's brethren, and as 
such, are specially commissioned by him to receive in his be- 
half the tokens of our love and gratitude. Are we taught by 
our pastors thus to regard them ? Does the noisy demagogue, 
prating about ecpial rights and universal suffrage, find no apolo- 
gy for giving the lie to his professions, and trampling upon his 
colored fellow citizens, in the conduct of the Church herself ? 
Will those who drive from the schools of the prophets, youths 
anxious to qualify themselves for the service of our common 
Lord, venture to rebuke the inhumanity of the proprietors of 
our stage-coaches, our packets, and our railroads, for excluding 
from their conveyances, these unhappy people, however decent 
their deportment, and however urgent their business ? The 
Jews despised the Samaritans, and were too proud to receive at 
their hands even a cup of water. But the Saviour, disregard- 
in^ an unholy although popular prejudice, ate and drank and 
lodged with them ; declared to them his divine mission, and in 
his inimitable parable, selected one of them as an illustration of 
the great law of love, to the condemnation of the proud and 
heartless but orthodox Priest and Levite. 

Surely it is not surprising that the efforts of so large a por- 
tion of the Christian ministry to sanctify slavery and caste, 
should give great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blas- 
pheme, and to His friends for grief and perplexity. No small 
number of those friends, failing to make due allowance for the 
frailty of our fallen nature, and forgetting the trials arising from 
the dependence of the clergy on popular support, have rashly 
and weakly imagined, that the influence of the church is neces- 



LETTER TO BISHOP IVES. 489 

garily adverse to an enlarged and practical application of the 
benevolent precepts of the Gospel. Hence they have unhappily 
indulged the vain expectation that they could cherish more 
freely the benign impulses of Christianity when released from 
the restraints of ecclesiastical organizations. Such men, by 
gradually neglecting the appointed means of grace, have made 
shipwreck of their faith, and listening to the voice of the charm- 
er, and deluding themselves with the belief that they were 
doing God service, have united with demagogues, scoffers, and 
infidels in unholy and chimerical schemes of expansive benevo- 
lence. 

It may well be questioned, how far those who by the most 
solemn vows have dedicated themselves to the service of the 
sanctuary, can lawfully confine their time and labor to the re- 
moval of any one moral or political evil. They are to declare 
the ivhole counsel of God, and to watch over and feed the flocks 
entrusted to their charge. But the ministers of Christ are 
faithless to their high and holy mission, when in the name of 
their Master, they give their assent to injustice and cruelty 
and oppression ; and by their own example, teach their people to 
despise the poor and helpless. The great Head of the Church 
has warned us against that fear of man which bringcth a snare, 
and demands that his ambassadors shall deliver his message of 
mercy and love, regardless alike of the displeasure of such as 
are in high places, and of the scoffs and clamor of the Godless 
multitude. The tree is known by its fruits, and that is not the 
religion of the Gospel which fails to inculcate glory to God, 
and peace and good will to men. 

December, 1846. 

42 



A D I) R E S S 

TO THE INHABITANTS OF NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA, ON 
THE OMISSION BY CONGRESS TO PROVIDE THEM WITH 
TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS, AND ON THE SO- 
CIAL AND POLITICAL EVILS OF SLAVERY. 



Friends and Felow Countrymen : 

A number of citizens interested in your welfare, and anxious 
to promote your prosperity, have deputed us to address you in 
the present crisis of your affairs. It 'may be in our power to 
communicate to you facts with which you are not familiar, and 
to offer you considerations deserving your reflection. We there- 
fore solicit your patient and dispassionate attention. 

You complain that since your annexation to the United States, 
you have been denied the protection and advantages of civil 
government. Your complaint is well-founded, and the solemn 
promises made to you in the name of the Federal Government 
have been most flagrantly violated. Pains have been and will be 
taken to deceive you as to the persons who have, in denying you 
a government, been regardless alike of your rights and your in- 
terests. Permit us first to remind you of the solemn and official 
pledges made to you, and then to show you by whom, and from 
what motives, those pledges have been broken. 

On the 7th July, 1846, Commodore Sloat landed at Monterey, 



492 jay's works. 

and taking possession of California by right of conquest, declared 
in his proclamation addressed to the inhabitants : 

" Henceforth California will he a portion of the United States, and 
its peaceable inhabitants will enjoy the same rights and privileges as 
the citizens of any other portion of that territory, with all the rights 
and privileges they now enjoy, together with the privilege of choosing 
their own magistrates and other officers, for the administration of jus- 
tice among themselves." 

On the 17th August of the same year, R. F. Stockton, " Gov- 
ernor of the territory of California," by proclamation thus con- 
firmed the promise given by Commodore Sloat : 

" The territory of California now belongs to the United States, and 
will be governed as soon as circumstances may permit by officers and 
laws similar to those by ivhich the other territories of the United Stales 
are regulated and protected." 

General Kearney succeeded Stockton as Governor, and on 
the 1st of March, 1847, addressed a proclamation to the inhabi- 
tants, in which, avowedly under instructions from the President, 
he declared : 

" It is the wish and intention of the United States to procure for Cal- 
ifornia, as speedily as possible, a free government like that of their oivn 
territories, and they will very soon invite the inhabitants to exercise 
the rights of free citizens, with the choice of their own representatives, 
who may enact such laws as they may deem best adapted to their own 
interests and well-being." 

The people of New Mexico were" in like manner assured by 
Gen. Kearney on the 18th August, 184G, in a proclamation is- 
sued by him at Sante Fe : 

" It is the wish and intention of the United States to provide for 
New Mexico a free government with the least possible delay, similar to 
those in the United States, and the people of New Mexico will then be 
called to exercise the rights of freemen in electing their own represen- 
tatives to the territorial government." 

Such were the full and explicit pledges given to the people of 
both provinces. They were to have territorial legislatures, and 
elect their own representatives. But perhaps these pledges were 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 493 

unauthorized by the Cabinet at Washington. Unhappily for 
the faith and honor of the Federal Government, such a supposi- 
tion is refuted by the instructions given to Gen. Kearney, dated 
at Washington, 3d June, 1846: 

" Should you conquer and take possession of New Mexico and Cal- 
ifornia, you may assure the people of those provinces that it is the wish 
and design of the United States to provide for them a free government 
with the least possible delay, similar to that which exists in our Territo- 
ries. They will then be called to exercise the rights of freemen in elect 
ing their own representatives to the territorial legislature." 

How have these solemn and repeated pledges been redeemed ? 

In December, 1847, the President recommended Congress to 
provide for the adjoining territory of Oregon a territorial govern- 
ment, adding that the people "should have the right of suffrage, 
be represented in a territorial legislature, and by a delegate in 
Congress." This then by his own pledges was the model of the 
government to be provided for you ; yet no such recommendation 
was ever made by him in regard to you. Slave-holders intepded 
to move into your territory with their slaves, and slave-breeders 
were anxious to open for their stock new markets on your soil. 
But it was known that you were averse to human bondage, and 
if intrusted with the promised powers of self-government, those 
powers w^ould be exercised in behalf of human rights. Hence 
it was determined, in utter contempt of all the pledges made to 
you, to keep you in a state of vassalage, until slavery had been 
irrevocably fastened upon you. Three territories, Oregon, New 
Mexico, and California, were to be organized. In the first of 
these, the. people had already formed a provisional government, 
and had had the wisdom and virtue to prohibit slavery. Of this 
territory, the slave-holders had no hope of gaining possession ; 
their designs were centered on the other two. To facilitate 
those designs, the Senate, consisting one-half of slave-holders, 
by the aid and treachery of a few northern members passed a 
bill (July 22, 1848) for the organization of the three territories. 
By this bill, such a government was given to Oregon as had 
been promised to you. The people were invested with the right 
of suffrage, and a territorial legislature was established, con.-i^t- 
42* 



494 jay's works* 

ing of representatives chosen by the inhabitants. To New Mex- 
ico and California were assigned despotic governments, exercised 
by officers named by the President, while the people of the 
two territories were as totally excluded from all participation in 
the choice of rulers and the enactment of laws, as the negro 
slaves of South Carolina. Not a ballot-box was to be seen 
throughout the whole extent of the new territories. Thus did 
the President and his partisans redeem the pledges made to you 
through Sloat, Stockton, and Kearney. Your northern friends 
in the House of Representatives refused to sanction this base 
perfidy, and rejected the bill. Do you complain that you were 
thus deprived of a government to be administered by the Pres- 
ident's delegates, a government in which you had no part or lot, 
a government which falsified the pledges given "you, which in- 
sulted and degraded you by treating you as a conquered and 
servile race, while all the privileges of American citizens prom- 
ised to you were given in full measure to your neighbors ? No, 
you feel and acknowledge the protecting care of your friends^ 
and will see in their rejection of this base attempt to cheat and 
humble you, an earnest of their future devotion to your best in- 
terests. But justice to Oregon required that she should not be 
left without a government merely because the slave-holders wished 
to wrong you. The House of Representatives therefore passed 
a separate bill, establishing a territorial government for that ter- 
ritory, and in compliance with the wish of the inhabitants in- 
serted in it a clause securing them forever from the curse of 
slavery. This bill became a law at the end of the session, but 
the President, on affixing his signature to it, made a declaration 
in writing that he would have vetoed a similar bill for you ! 
Regardless of this insulting announcement, the House of Rep- 
resentatives early the next session prepared two separate bills, 
giving a territorial government to New Mexico and California, 
in conformity with the previous pledges, and similar in its pro- 
visions to that given to Oregon, and protecting the two terri- 
tories from slavery. For want of time, only the bill for California 
was passed. It was sent to the Senate, and that body by a 
formal vote refused even to take it into consideration ! On the 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 495 

13 tli of December, tlie petition from the people of New Mexico, 
praying for a territorial government, and to be protected from 
slavery, was presented to the Senate. Mr. Calhoun, the leader 
of the slave-holders, instantly denounced it as " disrespectful and 
most insolent," and the petitioners were spoken of as "a con- 
quered people." 

At the close of the session the usual appropriation bill pro- 
viding for the expenses of the Federal Government was passed 
by the House of Representatives. The slave-holders now thought 
they had an opportunity of coercing your friends into a sacrifice 
of your interests. A clause was added to the bill extending the 
Constitution and laws of the United States over the two territo- 
ries, and vesting in the President unlimited powers of gov- 
ernment, and the appointment of officers at Ms discretion. It 
mattered not that all this was in contemptuous violation of the 
pledges given you. A purpose was to be served. By the 
acknowledged laws of nations, a conquered people retain their own 
laws till altered by the new sovereign. Your laws prohibiting 
slavery had not been repealed by the conquest. It was con- 
tended that the extension of the Constitution and laws of the 
United States over the two territories would virtually repeal the 
existing laws, and thus open the door for the establishment of 
negro slavery among you. The loss of the appropriation bill 
would throw the whole fiscal affairs of the government into 
confusion. The debts due to individuals would be suspended. 
Salaries would remain unpaid, &c, &c. It was hoped your 
friends would shrink from the responsibility of causing such 
wide-spread disorder by rejecting the bill on account of the ob- 
noxious clause outraging your rights. Yet your interests required 
that some government should be established for you, and almost 
any temporary government was better than none. The House 
had in vain attempted to give you a proper one, and to preserve 
you from anarchy, they accepted the miserable substitute pro- 
vided by the slave-holders, but defeated the object for which 
that substitute had been contrived, by adding a clause recogniz- 
ing and continuing in force your existing laivs. On this the 
Senate abandoned their plan, passed the appropriation bill 



496 jay's works. 

securing their own pay, and adjourned, leaving you a prey to 
anarchy. 

Soon after the adjournment, Mr. Foote, one of the senators 
devoted to the extension of slavery, published an article declar- 
ing that he was " authorized to say " that if the amendment 
recognizing your existing laws had been agreed to, " it would 
inevitably have defeated the civil and diplomatic appropriation 
bill, as President Polk had already in part prepared his veto to 
the bill!" 

The slave power has resolved that you shall have no govern- 
ment but such as shall establish the dominion of the whip. 
From a dominion so loathsome and blighting, your northern 
friends have hitherto rescued you ; and to explain their motives, 
and to invite your earnest cooperation, we now proceed to lay 
before you a statement of some of the moral and political evils 
experienced in the United States from the same accursed insti- 
tution with which you are threatened. Never have the com- 
parative influences of free and slave labor on public prosperity 
and happiness been more fairly tested, or more certainly decided 
than in this country. Of the thirty States composing our Union, 
fifteen maintain and enforce, and fifteen reject and abhor the 
principle of property in men, women and children. By ponder- 
ing the facts we are about to present, you will be enabled to 
judge whether your northern friends in the course they have 
pursued have consulted or sacrificed your true interests. 

Slavery is an institution exclusively for the rich. We might 
as well talk of poor men owning herds of cattle and studs of 
horses, as gangs of negroes. When an infant will bring a 
hundred, a woman four or five hundred, and a man from eight 
hundred to a thousand dollars, slaves are not commodities to be 
found in the cabins of the poor. There is also a peculiai'ity in 
slave labor that necessarily confines it to the wealthy. The 
women and children, being property, must be owned together 
with the male laborers. Hence it is almost impossible to find a 
master who is the possessor of only a single slave. Our last 
census shows that the tAvo sexes among the slaves are about 
equal in number, and that there are two children under ten 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 497 

years of age for every male above that age. Hence if a planter 
owns three men, we may take it for granted that his slave family 
consists of at least twelve persons, viz., three men, three women, 
and six children. It has been ascertained by various statistics 
that the whole number of slave-holders in the United States is 
probably less than 248,000, not one-third of the adult white 
male population of the United States. Yet this small body of 
men engross the greater portion of the land and wealth of the 
slave region, forming in fact a powerful feudal aristocracy, pos- 
sessing nearly three millions of serfs, and governing and oppress- 
ing at pleasure the rest of the population. They are always 
banded together for the preservation and extension of their own 
power, and always, for obvious reasons, endeavoring to identify 
their private interests with the public welfare. In what man- 
ner that welfare is promoted by their guardianship, we will now 
show you. 

1. INCREASE OF POPULATION. 

The ratio of increase of population, especially in this country, 
is one of the surest tests of public prosperity. Let us then here 
examine the impartial testimony of the late census. From this 
we learn that the increase of population in the free States from 
1830 to 1840, was at the rate of thirty-eight per cent,, while the 
increase of the free population in the slave States was only 
twenty-three per cent. Why this difference of fifteen in the 
two ratios ? No other cause can be assigned than slavery, which 
drives from their borders many of the virtuous and enterprising, 
and at the same time deters emigrants from other States and 
from foreign countries from settling among them. 

The influence of slavery on population is strikingly illustrated 
by a comparison between Kentucky and Ohio. These two 
States are of nearly equal areas, Kentucky, however, having 
about 3000 square miles more than the other.* They are sep- 
arated only by a river, and are both remarkable for the fertility 
of their soil ; but one has, from the beginning, been cursed with 

* American Almanac for 1843, p. 206. 



498 jay's works. 

slavery, and the other Messed with freedom. Now mark their 
respective careers. 

In 1792, Kentucky was erected into a State, and Ohio in 
1802. 

Free population of Kentucky. Free population of Ohio. 

1790 61,227, A wilderness. 

1800! 180,612, 45,365 

1810, 325,950, 230,760 

1820, • 437,585, 581,434 

1830, 522,704, 937,903 

1840, 597,570, 1,519,467 

The representation of the two States in Congress, has been 
as follows : 

Kentucky. Ohio. 

1802, 6, 1 

1812, 9, 6 

1822, 12, 14 

1832, 13, 19 

1842, 10, 21 

The value of land, other things being equal, is in proportion 
to the density of the population. Now the population of Ohio 
is 38.8 to a square mile, while the free population of Kentucky 
is but 14.2 to a square mile — and probably the price of land in 
the two States is much in the same proportion. We are told, 
much of the wealth is invested in negroes — yet it obviously is 
a wealth that impoverishes ; and no stronger evidence of the 
truth of this assertion is needed, than the comparative price of 
land in the free and slave States. The two principal cities of 
Kentucky and Ohio are Louisville and Cincinnati ; the former 
with a population of 21,210, the latter with a population of 
46,338. Why this difference ? The question is answered by 
the Louisville Journal. The editor, speaking of the two rivial 
cities, remarks : 

" The most potent cause of the more rapid advancement of Cincin- 
nati than Louisville is the absence of slavery. The same influ- 
ences which made Ohio the young giant of the West, and is advancing 
Indiana to a grade higher than Kentucky, have operated in the Queen 
City. They have no dead iveighl to carry, and consequently have the 
advantage in the race." 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 

In 1840, Mr. C. M. Clay, a member of the Kentucky Legisl 
ture, published a pamphlet against the repeal of the law prohib- 
iting the importation of slaves from the other States. "We 
extract the following : 

" The world is teaming with improved machinery, the combined 
development of science and art. To us it is all lost; we are compara- 
tively living in centuries that are gone ; we cannot make it, we cannot 
use it when made. Ohio is many years younger, and possessed of fewer 
advantages than our State. Cincinnati has manufactories to sustain 
her ; last year she put up one thousand houses. Louisville, with supe- 
rior natural advantages, as all the world knows, wrote ' to rent,' upon 
many of her houses. Ohio is a free State, Kentucky a slave 
State." 

Mr. Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, in a pamphlet pub- 
lished the same year, and on the same subject, draws the follow- 
ing comparison between Virginia and New York : 

"In 1790, Virginia, with 70,000 square miles of territory, contained 
a population of 749,308. New York, upon a surface of 45,658 square 
miles, contained a population of 344,120. This statement exhibits in 
favor of Virginia a difference of 24,342 square miles of territory, and 
405,188 in population, which is the double of New York, and 68,600 
more. In 1830, after a race of forty years, Virginia is found to con- 
tain 1,211,405 souls, and New York 1,918,608, which exhibits a differ- 
ence in favor of New York of 707,203. The increase on the part of 
Virginia will be perceived to be 462,097, starting from a basis more 
than twice as large as that of New York: The increase of New 
York, upon a basis of 344,120, has been 1,574,488 human beings. 
Virginia has increased in a ratio of 61 per cent., and New York in 
that of 566 per cent. 

" The total amount of property in Virginia under the assessment of 
1838, was $21 1,930,508. The aggregate value of real and personal 
property in New York, in 1839, was $654,000,000, exhibiting an excess 
in New York over Virginia of capital of $442,069,492. 

" Statesmen may differ about policy, or the means to be employed 
in the promotion of the public good, but surely they ought to be agreed 
as to what prosperity means. I think there can be no dispute that 
New York is a greater, richer, a more prosperous and powerful State 

than Virginia. What has occasioned the difference ? 

There is but one explanation of the facts I have shown. The clog that 
has stayed the march of her people, the incubus that has weighed down 
her enterprise, strangled her commerce, kept sealed her exhaustless 
fountains of mineral wealth, and paralyzed her arts, manufactures and 
improvement, is NEGRO SLAVERY." 



500 jay's works. 

These statements were made before the results of the last 
census were known. By the census of 1840, it appears that in 
the ten preceding years, 

The population of Virginia has increased 28,392 

In the same time the population of N. Y. increased 710,413 

The rate of increase in Virginia was 2.3 per cent. 

" " New York, 33.7 " 

Virginia has 12.5 free inhabitants to a squai'e mile. 
New York 52.7 " " « " 

In 1790, Massachusetts, with Maine, had but 378,717 inhabitants. 

" Maryland, 319,728 " 

In 1840, Massachusetts alone, 737,699 " 

" Maryland, 469,232 " 

Now let it be recollected that Maryland is nearly double the 
size of Massachusetts. In the last there are 98.3 free inhabi- 
tants to the square mile ; in the former only 27.2. 

If we turn to the new States, Ave find that slavery and free- 
dom have the same influence on population as in the old. Take, 
for instance, Michigan and Arkansas. They came into the 
Union about the same time. 

In 1830, the population of Arkansas was 30,388 

In 1840, " " 97,574 

In 1830, " Michigan,- 31,639 

In 1840, " " 212,267 

The ratio of increase of white inhabitants, for the last ten 
years, has been in Arkansas as 200 per cent. ; in Michigan, 574 
per cent. In both instances the increase has been chiefly owing 
to emigration ; but the ratio shows the influence of slavery in 
retarding emigration. Compare also Alabama and Illinois. 

In 1830, the free population of Alabama, was 191,975 

" « » Illinois, 157,455 

Excess in favor of Alabama, 34,520 

In 1840, free population of Illinois, 476,183 

" " « Alabama, 337,224 

Excess in favor of Illinois, 138,959 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 501 

We surely need not detain you with further details on this 
head, to convince you what an enormous sacrifice of happiness 
and prosperity is now offered on the altar of slavery. But of 
the character and extent of this sacrifice you have as yet had 
only a partial glimpse. Let us proceed to examine, 

2. THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN THE SLAVE STATES. 

The maxim that "knowledge is power," has ever more or 
less influenced the conduct of aristocracies. Education elevates 
the inferior classes of society, teaches them their rights, and 
points out the means of enforcing them. Of course, it tends to 
diminish the influence of wealth, birth, and rank. In 1671, Sir 
William Berkley, then Governor of Virginia, in his answer to 
the inquiries of the Committee of the Colonies, remarked, " I 
thank God that there are no free schools nor printing presses, 
and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years." The 
spirit of Sir William seems still to preside in the councils of his 
own Virginia, and to actuate those of the other slave States. 

The power of the slave-holders, as we have already shown 
you, depends on the acquiescence of the major part of the white 
inhabitants in their domination. It cannot be, therefore, the 
interest or the inclination of the sagacious and reflecting among 
them, to promote the intellectual improvement of the inferior 
class. 

In the free States, on the contrary, where there is no caste 
answering to your slave-holders — where the people literally 
partake ia the government, mighty efforts are made for general 
education; and in most instances, elementary instruction is, 
through the public liberality, brought within the reach of the 
children of the poor. Lamentable experience proves that such 
is not the case where slave-holders bear rule. 

The last census gives us the number of white persons over 
twenty years of age in each State, who cannot read and write. 
It appears that these persons are to the tvliole white population 
in the several States as follows, viz. : 
43 



502 jay's wokks. 

Connecticut, 1 to every 568 Louisiana, 1 to every 38 1-2 

Vermont, 1 " 472 Maryland, .... 1 " 27 

New Hampshire, -1 " 310 Mississippi, -••■ 1 " 20 

Massachusetts, ••• 1 " 166 Delaware, 1 " 18 

Maine, 1 " 108 S. Carolina, • • • 1 " 17 

Michigan, 1 " 07 Missouri, 1 " 16 

Rhode Island, •••• 1 " 67 Alabama, 1 " 15 

New Jersey, 1 " 58 Kentucky, ... -1 " 13 1-2 

New York, 1 " 56 Georgia, 1 " 13 

Pennsylvania, •••• 1 " 50 Virginia, 1 " 121-2 

Ohio, 1 " 43 Arkansas, ..... 1 " 11 1-2 

Indiana, 1 " 18 Tennessee, 1 " 11 

Illinois, 1 " 17 N. Carolina, • • • 1 " 7* 

It will be observed by looking at this table, that Indiana and 
Illinois are the only free States, which in point of education are 
surpassed by any of the slave States : for this disgraceful cir- 
cumstance three causes may be assigned, viz., their recent set- 
tlement, the influx of foreigners, and emigration from the slave 
States. The returns from New York, Rhode Island, New Jer- 
sey and Pennsylvania, are greatly affected by the vast number 
of foreigners congregated in their cities, and employed in their 
manufactories and on their public works. In Ohio, also, there 
is a large foreign population ; and it is well known that com- 
paratively few emigrants from Europe seek a residence in the 
slave States, where there is little or no employment to invite them. 
But what a commentary on slavery and slave-holders is afforded 
by the gross ignorance prevailing in the old States of South 
Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina ! But let us proceed. 
The census gives a return of " scholars at public charge." 

Of these, there are in the free States, 432,173 

" " slave States, 35,580 

Ohio alone has 51,812 such scholars, — more than are to be 
found in the 13 slave States ! Her neighbor Kentucky has 
429 ! ! Let us compare in this particular the largest and the 
smallest State in the Union. 

Virginia has scholars at public charge 9,791 

Rhode Island 10,912f 

* This summary from the return of the census, is copied from the Rich- 
mond (Va.) Compiler. 

t See American Almanac for 1812, page 226. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 503 

But we have some official confessions, which give a still more 
deplorable account of southern ignorance. In 1837, Governor 
Clarke, in his message to the Kentucky Legislature, remarked, 
" By the computation of those most familiar with the subject, 

ONE THIRD OF THE ADULT POPULATION OF THE STATE ARE 
UNABLE TO WRITE THEIR NAMES." 

Governor Campbell reported to the Virginia Legislature, that 
from the returns of 98 clerks, it appeared that of 4,614 applica- 
tions for marriage licenses in 1837, no less than 1,047 icere made 
by men unable to write. 

These details will enable you to estimate the impudence of the 
following plea in behalf of slavery : 

" It is by the existence of slavery, exempting so large a portion of 
our citizens from the necessity of bodily labor, that we have leisure 
for intellectual pursuits, and the means of attaining a liberal education." 
Chancellor Harper, of South Carolina, on Slavery. Southern Literary 
Messenger, Oct. 1838. 

Whatever may be the leisure enjoyed by the slave-holders, 
they are careful not to afford the means of literary improvement 
to their fellow-citizens who are too poor to possess slaves, and 
who are, by their very ignorance, rendered more fit instruments 
for doing the will, and guarding the human property of the 
wealthier class. 

3. INDUSTRY AND ENTERPRISE. 

In a community so unenlightened as that of the slave States, 
it is a matter of course that the arts and sciences must languish, 
and the industry and enterprise of the country be oppressed by 
a general torpor. Hence multitudes will be without regular and 
profitable employment, and be condemned to poverty and num- 
berless privations. The very advertisements in the newspapers 
show that, for a vast proportion of the comforts and conveniences 
of life, they are dependent on northern manufactures and me- 
chanics. Slavery has rendered labor disgraceful ; and where 
this is the case, industry is necessarily discouraged. The great 
staple of the South is cotton ; and we have no desire to under- 



504 jay's works. 

value its importance. It is, however, worthy of remark, that 
its cultivation affords a livelihood to only a small proportion of 
the free inhabitants ; and scarcely to any of those we are now 
addressing. Cotton is the product of slave labor, and its profits 
at home are confined almost exclusively to the slave-holders. 
Yet on account of this article, Ave hear frequent vaunts of the 
agricultural riches of the South. With the exception of cotton, 
it is difficult to distinguish your agricultural products arising from 
slave, and from free labor. But admitting, what we know is 
not the fact, that all the other productions of the soil are raised 
exclusively by free labor, we learn from the census, that the 
agricultural products of the North exceed those of the South, 
cotton excepted, $226,219,714. Here then we have an appall- 
ing proof of the paralyzing influence of slavery on the industry 
of the whites. 

In every community a large portion of the inhabitants are 
debarred from drawing their maintenance directly from the cul- 
tivation of the earth. Other and lucrative employments are 
reserved for them. If the slave-holders chiefly engross the soil, 
let us see how you are compensated by the encouragement af- 
forded to mechanical skill and industry. 

In 1839, the Secretary of the Treasury reported to Congress, 
that the tonnage of vessels built in the United States was 
120,988; built in the slave. States and Territories, 23,600, or 
less than one-fifth of the whole ! But the difference is still 
more striking, when we take into consideration the comparative 
value of the shipping built in the two regions : 

In the free States the value is $C, 31 1,805 

In the slave States, 704,291* 

It would be tedious and unprofitable to compare the results of 
the different branches of manufacture carried on at the North 
and at the South. It is sufficient to state that, according to the 
census, the value of the manufactures 

In the free States is $334,139,090 

In the slave States 83,935,742 

* See American Almanac for 1S43, page 153. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 505 

Having already compared Ohio and Kentucky in reference to 
population and education, we will pursue the comparison as to 
agricultural and mechanical industry. On account of contiguity, 
and similarity of extent, soil and climate, no two States can 
perhaps be so aptly contrasted for the purpose of illustrating the 
influence of slavery. It should also be borne in mind that 
Kentucky can scarcely be called a cotton State, having in 1840 
raised only 607,45 6 pounds of that article. Hence the deficiency 
of agriculture and other products in Kentucky arises, not from 
a peculiar species of cultivation, but solely from the withering 
effects of slavery. 

Ohio. Kentucky. 

Wool, 3,685,315 lbs. 1,786,842 

Wheat, 16,571,661 bushels 5,803,152 

Hay, 1,022,037 tons 88,306 

Fulling Mills, 205 5 

Printing-offices, 159 34 

Tanneries, 862 38 < 

Commercial houses ) ^ 4 5 

in foreign trade, \ 

Value of machinery } $ 87 5,731 $46,074 

manufactured, ) 

In one species of manufacture the South apparently excels 
the North, but unquestionably it is in appearance only. Of 
9,657 distilleries in the United States, no less than 7,665 were 
found in the slave States and Territories ; but for want of skill 
and capital, these yield 1,992 gallons less than the other. 

Where there is so much ignorance and idleness, we may well 
suppose that the inventive faculties will be but little exercised ; 
and accordingly we find that of the 545 patents granted for new 
inventions in 1846, only 80 were received by the citizens of the 
slave States. We have thus offered to our readers the testi- 
mony of figures, as to the different state of society under free- 
dom and slavery; suffer us now to present you pictures of the 
two regions, drawn not by abolitionists, but by southern artists, 
in unguarded hours. Mr. Clowney, of South Carolina, thus 
portrayed his native State, in the ardor of debate on the floor 
of Congress: 

43* 



506 jay's works. 

" Look at South Carolina now, with her houses deserted and falling 
to decay ; her once fruitful fields worn out and abandoned for want of 
timely improvement or skilful cultivation ; and her thousands of acres 
of inexhaustible lands, still promising an abundant harvest to the in- 
dustrious husbandman, lying idle and neglected. In the interior of the 
State where I was born, and where I now live, although a country pos- 
sessing all the advantages of soil, climate, and health, abounding in 
arable land, unreclaimed from the first rude state of nature, there can 
now be found many neighborhoods where the population is too sparse 
to support a common elementary school for children. Such is the de- 
plorable condition of one of the oldest members of this Union, that 
dates back its settlement more than a century and a half, while other 
States, born as it were but yesterday, already surpass what Carolina is 
or ever has been, in the happiest and proudest day of her prosperity." 

This gentleman chose to attribute the decline of South Caro- 
lina to the tariff, rather than to the obvious cause, that one-half 
of the people of South Carolina are poor, ignorant, degraded 
slaves, and the other half suffering in all their faculties and 
energies, from a moral pestilence which they insanely regard as 
a blessing and not a curse. Surely it is not owing to the tariff, 
that this ancient member of the Union has 20,615 white citizens 
over twenty years of age who do not know their letters ; while 
Maine, with double her population, has only 3,241. 

Now look upon a very different picture. Mr. Preston, of South 
Carolina, not long since delivered a speech at Columbia in ref- 
erence to a proposed railroad. In this speech, in order to stim- 
ulate the efforts of the friends of the road, he indulged in the 
following strain : 

" No southern man can journey (as he had lately done) through the 
Northern States, and witness the prosperity, the industry, the public 
spirit which they exhibit — the sedulous cultivation of all those arts 
by which life is rendered comfortable and respectable — without feel- 
ings of deep sadness and shame as he remembers Jiis oivn neglected and 
desolate home. There, no dwelling is to be seen abandoned — not a 
farm uncultivated. Every person and every thing performs a part 
towards the grand result; and the whole land is covered with fertile 
fields, with manufactories, and canals, and railroads, and edifices, and 
towns, and cities. We of the South are mistaken in the character of 
these people, when we think of them only as peddlers in horn flints and 
bark nutmegs. Their energy and enterprise are directed to all objects 
great and small within their reach. The number of railroads and other 
modes of expeditious intercommunication knit the whole country into 
a closely compacted mass, through which the productions of commerce 
and of the press, the comforts of life, and the means of knowledge, are 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 507 

universally diffused ; while the close intercourse of travel and of busi- 
ness makes all neighbors, and promotes a common interest and a com- 
mon sympathy. How different the condition of these things at the 
South ! Here the face of the country wears the aspect of premature 
old age and decay. No improvement is seen going on, nothing is 
done for posterity. No man thinks of anything beyond the present 
moment." 

Tot this same Mr. Preston, thus sensitively alive to the supe- 
rior happiness and prosperity of the free States, declared in the 
United States Senate, 

" Let an abolitionist come within the borders of South Carolina, if 
we can catch we will try him, and notwithstanding all the interference 
of all the governments of the earth, including the Federal Govern- 
ment, we will hang him."* 

In other words, the slave-holders, rather than part with their 
slaves, are ready to murder, with all the formalities of law, 
the very men who are laboring to confer on them the envied 
blessings of the North. 



4. FEELINGS OF THE SLAVE-HOLDERS TOWARDS THE 
LABORING CLASSES. 

Whenever the great mass of the laboring population of a 
country are reduced to beasts of burden, and toil under the lash, 
" bodily labor," as Chancellor Harper expresses it, must be dis- 
reputable, from the mere influence of association. Hence it is 
that white laborers at the South are styled "mean whites." At 
the North, on the contrary, labor is regarded as the proper and 
commendable means of acquiring wealth ; and our most influ- 
ential men would in no degree suffer in public estimation, for 
holding the plough, or even repairing the highways. Hence no 
poor man is deterred from seeking a livelihood by honest labor 
from a dread of personal degradation. The different light in 
which labor is viewed at the North and the South is one cause 
of the depression of industry in the latter. 

* We arc well aware that Mr. Preston has denied, what no one asserted, 
that he had said an abolitionist, if he came into South Carolina, woidd be ex- 
ecuted by Lynch law. He used the words we have quoted. (See "New York 
Journal of Commerce," Jan. 6th, 1838.) 



508 jay's works. 

Another cause is the ever-wakeful jealousy of the aristocracy. 
They fear the rEorLE ; they are alarmed at the very idea of 
power and influence being possessed by any portion of the com- 
munity not directly interested in slave property. Visions of 
emancipation, of agrarianism, and of popular resistance to their 
authority, are ever floating in their distempered and excited im- 
aginations. They know their own weakness, and are afraid you 
should know it also. Henee it is their policy to keep down the 
" mean whites." Hence their philippics against the lower classes. 
Hence their constant comparison of the laborers of the North, 
with their own slaves ; and hence, in no small degree, the absence 
among them of those institutions which confer upon the poor 
that knowledge which is power. Do you deem these assertions 
uncharitable ? Listen to their own declarations : 

" We believe the servitude which prevails in the South far prefer- 
able to that of the North, or in Europe. Slavery will exist in all com- 
munities. There is a class which may be nominally free, but they will 
be virtually slaves." Mississippian, July 6th, 1838. 

" Those who depend on their daily labor for their daily subsistence 
can never enter into political affairs ; they never do, never will, never 
can." B. W. Leigh in Virginia Convention, 1829. 

"All society settles down into a classification of capitalists and labor- 
ers. The former will own the latter, either collectively through the 
government, or individually in a state of domestic servitude, as exists 
in the Southern States of this confederacy. If laborers ever obtain 
the political power of a country, it is in fact in a state of revolution. 
The capitalists north of Mason and Dixon's line, have precisely the 
same interest in the labor of the country, that the capitalists of England 
have in their labor. Hence it is that they must have a strong federal 
government (!) to control the labor of the nation. But is precisely the 
reverse with us. We have already not only a right to the proceeds 
of our laborers, but we own a class of laborers themselves. But let 
me say to gentlemen who represent the great class of capitalists in the 
North — beware that you do not drive us into a separate system ; for 
if you do, as certain as the decrees of Heaven, you will be compelled 
to appeal to the sword to maintain yourselves at home. It may not come 
in your day ; but your children's children will be covered with the 
blood of domestic factions, and will see a plundering mob contending for 
power and conquest." Mr. Pickens, of South Carolina, in Congress, 
21st Jan., 1836. 

So the way to prevent plundering mobs, is to enslave the 
poor ! We shall see presently, how far this expedient has been 
successful in preventing murdering mobs. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 509 

" In the very nature of things there must be classes of persons to 
discharge all the different offices of society, from the highest to the 
lowest. Some of these offices are regarded as degrading, although they 
must and Avill be performed. Hence those manifest forms of depen- 
dent servitude -which produce a sense of superiority in the masters or 
employers, and of inferiority on the part of the servants. Where 
these offices arc performed by members of the political community, a 
dangerous elemext is obviously introduced into the body politic. 
Hence the alarming tendency to violate the rights of property by 
agrarian legislation, -which is beginning to be manifest in the older 
States, where universal suffrage prevails without domestic 

SLAVERY. 

" In a word, the institution of domestic slavery supersedes the neces- 
sity of AN ORDER OF NOBILITY, AND ALL THE OTHER APPENDAGES 

of a hereditary system of government." Governor M'Dufjie's 
Message to the South Carolina Legislature, 1836. 

" We regard slavery as the most safe and stable basis for free 
institutions in the world. It is impossible with us, that the conflict can 
take place between labor and capital, which makes it so difficult to 
establish and maintain free institutions in all "wealthy and highly civil- 
ized nations where such institutions do not exist. Every plantation is 
a little community, with the master at its head, who concentrates in 
himself the united interests of capital and labor, of ivhich he is the com- 
mon representative." Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, in the U. S. Sen- 
ate, Jan. 10th, 1840. 

" We of the South have cause now, and shall soon have greater, to 
congratulate ourselves on the existence of a population among us, which 
excludes the populace which in effect rules some of our northern 
neighbors, and is rapidly gaining strength wherever slavery does not 
exist — a populace made up of the dregs of Europe, and the most 
worthless portion of the native population." Richmond Whig, 1837. 

" Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox by giving him a 
cultivated understanding, a fine feeling ? So far as the mere labor- 
er has the pride, the knowledge, or the aspiration of a freeman, he is 
unfitted for his situation. If there are sordid, servile, laborious offices 
to be performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, servile, 
laborious beings to perform them ? 

" Odium has been cast upon our legislation, on account of its forbid- 
ding the elements of education being communicated to slaves. But in 
truth what injury is done them by this ? He ivho ivorks during the day 
with his hands, does not read in the intervals of leisure for his 
amusement, or the improvement of his mind, or the exception is so very 
rare as scarcely to need the being provided for." Chancellor Harper 
of South Carolina. Southern Literary Messenger. 



This same gentleman delivered an oration on the 4th of July, 
1840, reviewing the principles of the two great political parties, 
and although he supported Mr. Van Buren's administration, in 



510 jay's works. 

consideration of its devotion to the slave interest, he frankly 
inquires : 

" Is there anything in the principles and opinions of the great dem- 
ocratic rabble, as it has been justly called, -which should induce us 
to identify ourselves with that ? Here you may find every possible 
grade and hue of opinion which has ever existed in the country. Here 
you may find loafer, and loco-foco, and agrarian, and all the rabble of 
the city of New York, the most corrupt and depraved of rabbles, and 
which controls, in a great degree, the city itself, and through that, as 
being the commercial metropolis, exercises much influence over the 
State at large. 

" What are the essential principles of democracy as distinguished 
from republicanism? The first consists in the dogma, so portentous to 
us, of the natural equality and unalienable right to liberty of every 
human being. Our allies, (!) no doubt, are willing at present to modify 
the doctrine in our favor. But the spirit of democracy at large makes 
no such exceptions, nor will these (our allies, the northern democrats) 
continue to make it, longer than necessity or interest may require. 
The second consists in the doctrine of the divine right of majorities ; 
a doctrine not less false and slavish and absurd, than the ancient doc- 
trine of the divine right of kings." 

Mr. Eobert WicklifFe, of Kentucky, in a speech published in 
the Louisville Advertiser, in opposition to those who were 
adverse to the importation of slaves from the States, thus 
discourseth : 

" Gentlemen wanted to drive out the black population, that they may 
obtain white negroes in their place. White negroes have this 
advantage over black negroes, they can be converted into voters ; and 
the men who live upon the sweat of their brow, and pay them but a 
dependent and scanty subsistence, can, if able to keep ten thousand of 
them in employment, come up to the polls, and change the destiny of 
the country. 

" How improved will be our condition when we have such white 
negroes as perform the servile labors of Europe, of Old England, and 
he would add now of New England ; when our body servants and our 
cart drivers and our street sweepers are white negroes instead of black. 
Where will be the independence, the proud spirit, and the chivalry of 
Kentuckians then ? " 

Had the gentleman looked across the river, he might have 
found an answer to his question, in the wealth, power, intelli- 
gence and happiness of Ohio. 

In reading the foregoing extracts, it is amusing to observe 
how adroitly the slave-holders avoid all recognition of any other 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA, 511 

classes among them than masters and slaves. Who would sus- 
pect from their language, that they were themselves a small 
minority of the white inhabitants, and that their own " white 
negroes " could, if united and so disposed, outvote them at the 
polls ? It is worthy of remark that in their denunciations of 
the populace, the rabble, those toho work with their hands, they 
refer not to complexion, but to condition ; not to slaves, but to 
the poor and laborious of their own color. 

Slavery, although considered by Mr. Calhoun "the most 
stable basis of free institutions in the world," has, as we shall 
presently show you, in fact, led to grosser outrages in the social 
compact, to more alarming violations of constitutional liberty, to 
more bold and reckless assaults upon " free institutions " than 
have ever been even attempted by the much-dreaded agrarianism 
of the North. 

5. STATE OF RELIGION. 

The deplorable ignorance and want of industry at the South, 
together with the disrepute in which honest industry is held, 
cannot but exercise, in connection with other causes, a most 
unhappy influence on the morals of the inhabitants. There are 
between two and three millions of slaves, who are kept by law 
in brutal ignorance, and who, with few exceptions, are virtually 
heathens.* 

There are also among them more than 200,000 free negroes, 
thus described by Mr. Clay : — " Contaminated themselves, they 
extend their vices to all around them." | 

If evil communications corrupt good manners, the intimate 
intercourse of the whites with these people must be depraving : 
nor can the exercise of despotic power by the masters, their 
wives and children, be otherwise than unfavorable to the benev- 
olent affections. 

*"From long-continued and close observation, we believe that their (the 
slaves') moral and religious condition is such that they may justly be con- 
sidered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison 
with heathen in any country in the world. The negroes are destitute of the 
Gospel, and ever will be under the present state of things." Report published 
by the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, Dec. 3, 1833. 

f Speech before the American Colonization Society. 



512 jay's works. 

It is with pain we are compelled to add, that the conduct and 
avowed sentiments of the southern clergy in relation to slavery, 
necessarily exert an unhappy influence. Most of the clergy are 
themselves slave-holders, and are thus personally interested in 
the system, and are consequently bold and active in justifying it 
from Scripture, representing it as an institution enjoying the 
divine sanction. An English author, in reference to these 
efforts of your clergy forcibly remarks : 

"Whatever may have been the unutterable wickedness of slavery 
in the West Indies, there it never was baptized in the Redeemer's hal- 
lowed name, and its corruptions were not concealed in the garb of 
religion. That acme of piratical turpitude was reserved for the pro- 
fessed disciples of Jesus in America." 

And well has John Quincy Adams said, 

" The spirit of slavery has acquired not only an overruling ascendency, 
but it has become at once intolerant, prescriptive, and sophistical. It 
has crept into the philosophical chairs of the schools. Its cloven hoof 
has ascended the pulpits of the churches — professors of colleges teach 
it as a lesson of morals — ministers of the Gospel seek and profess to 
find sanctions for it in the word of God." 

The ministers live in the midst of slavery, and they know that 
the system on which they bestow their benedictions, is, in the 
language of Wilberforce, " a system of the grossest injustice, 
of the most heathenish irreligion and immorality; of the most 
unprecedented degradation and unrelenting cruelty." Surely, 
we have reason to fear that the denunciation of Scripture against 
false prophets of old, will be accomplished against the southern 
clergy, " Because they ministered unto them before their idols, 
and caused the House or Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore 
have I lifted mine hand against them, saith the Lord God, and 
they shall bear their iniquity." Ezek. 44 : 12. 

Under such ministrations it cannot be expected that Christian 
zeal and benevolence will take deep root and bear very abundant 
fruit. This is a subject on which few statistics can be obtained. 
We have no means of ascertaining the number of churches and 
ministers throughout the United States of the various denomina- 
tions. Some opinion, however, may be formed of the religious 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 513 

character of a people, by their efforts for the moral improvement 
of the community. In the United States there are numerous 
voluntary associations for religious and benevolent purposes, 
receiving large contributions and exercising a wide moral influ- 
ence. Now, of all the large benevolent societies professing to 
promote the welfare of the whole country, and asking and re- 
ceiving contributions from all parts of it, we recollect but one 
that had its origin in the slave-region, and the business of which 
is transacted in it, and that is the American Colonization 
Society. Of the real object and practical tendency of this 
Society it is unnecessary to speak — you understand them. 

In the Tenth Report of the American Sunday School Union 
(p. 50) is a table showing the number of Sunday School 
scholars in each State for the year 1834. From this table w< 
learn that 

There were in the free States, 504,835 scholars. 

" " slave " 82,532 " 

The single State of New York had 161,768 " 

About twice as many as in the thirteen slave States. 

And is it possible that this literary and religious destitution, 
together with the vicious habits of the colored population, should 
have no effect on the moral character of the whites ? 

"We entreat your patient and dispassionate attention to the 
remarks and facts we are about to submit to you on the next 
subject of inquiry. 

6. STATE OF MORALS. 

Christianity, by controlling the malignant passions of our 
nature, and exciting its benevolent affections, gives a sacredness 
to the rights of others, and especially does it guard human life. 
But where her blessed influence is withdrawn, or greatly im- 
paired, the passions resume their sway, and violence and cruelty 
become the characteristics of every community in which the 
civil authority is too feeble to afford protection. 

No society is free from vices and crime, and we well know 
that human depravity springs from another source than slavery. 

44 



514 jay's works. 

It will lfot, however, be denied that circumstances and institu- 
tions may check those evil propensities to which we are all 
prone ; and it will, we presume, be admitted that in forming an 
opinion of the moral condition and advancement of any com- 
munity, we are to be guided in our judgment, not by insulated 
facts, but by the toiie of public opinion. Atrocities occur in 
the best-regulated and most virtuous States, but in such they 
excite indignation and are visited with punishment ; while in 
vicious communities they are treated with levity and impunity. 

In a country where suffrage is universal, the representatives 
will but reflect the general character of their constituents. If 
we are permitted to apply this rule in testing the moral condition 
of the South, the result will not be favorable. 

In noticing the public conduct of public men, we are not 
sensible of violating any principle of courtesy or delicacy ; we 
touch not their private character or their private acts ; we refer 
to their language and sentiments, merely as one indication of 
the standard of morals among their constituents, not as conclusive 
proof apart from other evidence. 

On the 15th of February, 1837, R. M. Whitney was arraigned 
before the House of Representatives for contempt in refusing to 
attend when required before a committee. His apology was 
that he was afraid of his life, and he called, as a witness in his 
behalf, one of the committee, Mr. Fairfield, since Governor of 
the State of Maine. It appeared that in the committee, Mr. 
Peyton, of Virginia, had put some interrogatory to Whitney, 
who had returned a written answer which was deemed offensive. 
On this, as Mr. Fairfield testified, Peyton addressed the Chair- 
man in these terms : " Mr. Chairman, I wish you to inform this 
witness, that he is not to insult me in his answers : if he does, 
God damn him ! I will take his life on the spot ! " Whitney 
rose and said he claimed the protection of the committee, on 
which Peyton exclaimed, " God damn you, you shan't speak, 
you shan't say one word while you are in this room ; if you do I 
will put you to death ! " Soon after, Peyton, observing that 
Whitney was looking at him, cried out, " Damn him, his eyes 
are on me — God damn him, he is looking at me — he shan't 
do it — damn him, he shan't look at me ! " 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 515 

The newspaper reports of the proceedings of Congress, a few 
years since, informed us that Mr. Dawson, a member from Lou- 
isiana, went up to Mr. Arnold, another member, and said to him, 
" If you attempt to speak, or rise from your seat, sir, by God 
I'll cut your throat ! " 

In a debate on the Florida war, Mr Cooper having taken 
offence at Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, for some remarks relative to 
slavery, said in his reply, " If the gentleman from Ohio will 
come among my constituents and promulgate his doctrines there, 
he will find that Lynch law will be inflicted, and that the gen- 
tleman will reach an elevation which he little dreams of." 

In the session of 1841, Mr. Payne, of Alabama, in debate, 
alluding to the abolitionists, among whom he insisted the Post- 
master-General ought to be included, declared that he would 
proscribe all abolitionists, he " would put the brand of Cain upon 
them — yes, the mark of hell, and if they came to the South 

he WOUld HANG THEM LIKE DOGS ! " 

Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, at an earlier period thus 
expressed himself in the House : " I warn the abolitionists, ig- \ 
norant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall 
throw any of them into our hands, they may expect a felon's 
death ! " 

In 1848, Mr. Hale, a senator from New Hampshire, intro- 
duced a bill for the protection of property in the District of ^ 
Columbia, attempts having been made to destroy an Anti-Sla- 
very press. Mi\ Foote, a senator from Mississippi, thus ex- 
pressed himself in reply : " I invite him (Mr. H.) to the State 
of Mississippi, and will tell him beforehand, in all honesty, that 
he could not go ten miles into the interior, before he would 
grace one of the tallest trees of the forest, with a rope around 
his neck, with the approbation of every virtuous and patriotic 
citizen, and that, if necessary, I should myself assist in the 
operation." 

And now, do these honorable gentleman, with all their profan- 
ity and vulgarity, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, rep- 
resent the feelings, and manners, and morals of the slave-holding 
community ? We have seen no evidence that they have lost a 



516 jay's works. 

particle of popular favor in consequence of their ferocious 
violence. Alas ! their language has been reechoed again and 
again by public meetings in the slave States ; and we proceed 
to lay before you overwhelming proof that in tbe expression of 
their murderous feelings towards the abolitionists, they have 
faithfully represented the sentiments of their constituents. 

7. DISREGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE. 

"We have already seen that one of the blessings which the 
slave-holders attribute to their favorite institution, is exemption 
from popular tumults, and from encroachments by the democracy 
upon the rights of property. Their argument is, that political 
power in the hands of the poor and laboring classes is always 
attended Avith danger, and that this danger is averted when these 
classes are kept in bondage. With these gentlemen, life and 
liberty seem to be accounted as the small dust of the balance, 
when weighed against slavery and plantations ; hence, to pre- 
serve the latter they are ever ready to sacrifice the former, in 
utter defiance of laws and constitutions. 

"We have already noticed the murderous proposition in rela- 
tion to the abolitionists, made by Governor McDufne to the 
South Carolina Legislature in 1835 : " It is my deliberate opin- 
ion that the laws of every community should punish this species 
of interference, by death without benefit of clergy." In an 
address to a legislative assembly, Governor McDuffie refrained 
from the indecency of recommending illegal murder ; but we 
will soon find that the public sentiment of the South by no 
means requires that abolitionists shall be put to death with legal 
formalities ; but on the contrary, the slave-holders are ready, in 
the language of Mr. Payne, to " hang them like dogs." 

We hazard little in the assertion, that in no civilized Christian 
community on earth is human life less protected by law, or more 
frequently taken with impunity, than in the slave States of the 
Federal Union. We wish to impress upon you the danger and 
corruption to which you and your children are exposed from the 
institution, which, as we have shown you, exists by your suffer- 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 517 

ance. But you have been taught to respect this institution ; 
and hence it becomes necessary to enter into details, however 
painful, and to present you with authorities which you cannot 
reject. What we have just said of the insecurity of human 
life, will probably be deemed by you and others as abolition 
slander. Listen, then, to slave-holders themselves : 

" We long to see the day," said the Governor of Kentucky in his 
message to the Legislature, 1837, " when the law will assert its majesty, 
and stop the wanton destruction of life which almost daily occurs with- 
in the jurisdiction of this commonwealth. Men slaughter each 

OTHER WITH ALMOST PERFECT IMPUNITY. A Species of common 

law has grown up in Kentucky, which, were it written down, would, 
in all civilized countries, cause her to be re-christened, in derision, 

THE LAND OF BLOOD." 

The present Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Kentucky,* a 
few years since, published an article on the murders in that 
State. He states that some with whom he had conversed esti- 
mated them at eighty per annum ; but that he had rated them 
at about thirty ; and that he had ascertained that for the last 
three years, there had not been " an instance of capital pun- 
ishment in any white offender." 

" It is believed," says he, " there are more homicides on an average 
of two years in any of our more populous counties, than in the whole of 
several of our States of equal, or nearly equal, population to Kentucky ' 

Governor McVay, of Alabama, in his message to the Legis- 
lature, November 15, 1837, thus speaks : 

" We hear of homicides in different parts of the State continually, 
and yet have few convictions, and still fewer executions ! Why do 
we hear of stabbings and shootings almost daily in some part or 
other of our State ? " 

" Death by Violence. — The moral atmosphere in our State ap- 
pears to be in a deleterious and sanguinary condition. Almost every 
exchange paper which reaches us, contains some inhuman and revolt- 
ing case of murder, or death by violence. Not less than fifteen 
deaths by violence have occurred, to our certain knowledge, within the 
past three months." Grand Gulf Miss. Advertiser, 27th June, 1837. 

" Contempt of Human Life. — In view of the crimes which are 
daily committed, we are led to inquire whether it is owing to the 

* It is believed this gentleman is not a slave-holder. 
44* 



518 jay's "STORKS', 

inefficiency of our laws, or to the manner in which these laws arc 
administered, that this frightful deluge of human blood 

FLOWS THROUGH OUR STREETS AND OUR PLACES OF PUBLIC RE- 
SORT." Neio Orleans Bee, 23d May, 1838. 

At the opening of the Criminal Court in New Orleans, No- 
vember 4th, 1837, Judge Lansuque delivered an address, in 
which, speaking of the prevalence of violence, he used the fol- 
lowing language : 

" As a Louisiana parent, I i - eflect with terror, that our beloved chil- 
dren, reared to become one day honorable and useful citizens, may be 
the victims of these votaries of vice and licentiousness. Without some 
powerful and certain remedy, our streets will become butcheries, 

OVERFLOWING WITH TnE BLOOD OF OUR CITIZENS !" 

While the slave-holders are terrified at the idea of the " great 
democratic rabble," and rejoice in human bondage as supersed- 
ing the necessity of " an order of nobility, and all the appen- 
dages of a hereditary government," they have established a reign 
of terror, as insurrectionary and as sanguinary in principle, as 
that created by the sans culottes of the French Revolution. We 
indulge in no idle declamation, but speak the words of truth 
and soberness. 

A public meeting, convened in the church (J ! ) in the town 
of Clinton, Mississippi, 5th of September, 1835 — 

" Resolved, that it is our decided opinion, that any individual who 
dares to circulate, with a view to effectuate the designs of the aboli- 
tionists, any of the incendiary tracts or newspapers now in the course 
of transmission to this country, is justly worthy, in the sight of God 
and man, of immediate death ; and we doubt not that such would be 
the punishment of any such offender, in any part of the State of 
Mississippi where he may be found." 

It would be tedious to copy the numerous resolutions of 
similar import, passed by public meetings in almost every slave 
State. It is well known that the promoters of those lawless 
and sanguinary proceedings, did not belong to the " rabble " — 
they w T ere not " mean whites," but rich, influential slave-hold- 
ers. A meeting was held in 1835 at Williamsburgh, Virginia, 
which was harangued by no less a personage than John Tyler, 
once Governor of the State, and since President of the United 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 519 

States : under this gentleman's auspices, and after his address, 
the meeting resolved — 

" That we regard the printing and circulating within our limits, of 
incendiary publications, tending to excite«*our slaves to insurrection 
and rebellion, as treasonable acts of the most alarming character, and 
that when we detect offenders in the act, we will inflict upon them 
condign punishment, without resorting to any other tribunal." 

The profligacy of this resolution needs no comment. Mr. 
Tyler well knew that the laws of Virginia, and every other 
State, were abundantly sufficient to punish crime : but he and 
his fellow-lynchers wished to deter the people from receiving 
and reading anything adverse to slavery ; and hence, with their 
usual audacity, they determined to usurp the prerogative of 
courts and juries, and throw down all the bulwarks which the 
law has erected for the protection of innocence. 

Newspapers are regai'ded as the mirrors of public opinion. 
Let us see what opinions are reflected in those of the South. 

The Charleston Courier, 11th August, 1835, declared that 
" the galloios and the stake " awaited the abolitionists who should 
dare to " appear in person among us." 

" The cry of the whole South should be death, instant death to the 
abolitionist, wherever he is caught." Augusta (Geo.) Chronicle. 

" Let us declare through the public journals of our country, that 
the question of slavery is not and shall not be open to discussion ; that 
the system is too deep-rooted among us, and must remain forever ; that 
the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon 
■ its evils and immorality, and the necessity of putting means in opera- 
tion to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be 
cut out and cast upon the dunghill." Columbia (S. C.) Telescope. 

This, it will be noticed, is a threat addressed, not to the 
northern abolitionists, but to the great majority of the white in- 
habitants of the South ; and they are warned not to express an 
opinion offensive to the aristocracy. 

" Awful but Just Punishment. — We learn, by the arrival of 
the steamboat Kentucky last evening from Richmond, that Robinson, 
the Englishman mentioned in the Beacon of Saturday, as being in the 
vicinity of Lynchburg, was taken about fifteen miles from that town, 
and hanged on the spot, for exciting the slaves to insurrection." 
Norfolk (Va.) Beacon, 10th August, 1835. 



520 jay's works. 

" We can assure the Bostonians, one and all, who have embarked 
in the nefarious scheme of abolishing slavery at the South, that lashes 
will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. Let them send 
out their men to Louisiana ; they will never return to tell their suffer- 
ings, but they shall expiate the crime of interfering with our domestic 
institutions, by being burned at the stake." New Orleans True 
American. 

" Abolition editors in slave States will not dare to avow their opin- 
ions. It would be instant death to them." Missouri Argus. 

Here, again, is a threat directed against any person, who may 
happen to have the command of types and printer's ink. 

Now, we ask what must be the state of society, where the 
public journals thus justify and stimulate the public thirst for 
blood ? The very idea of trial is scouted, and the mob, or rather 
the slave-holders themselves, are acknowledged to be the arbiters 
of life and death. The question we put to you as to the state of 
society, has been already answei'ed by the official declarations of' 
the Governors of Kentucky and Alabama, and of Judge Lan- 
suque, of New Orleans ; as well as by the extracts we have given 
you from some of the southern journals, relative to the frequency 
of murders among them. "We could farther answer it, by filling 
sheets with accounts of fearful atrocities. But we purposely re- 
frain from referring to assassinations and private crimes ; for 
such, as already remarked, occur in a greater or less degree in 
every community, and do not necessarily form a test of the 
standard of morals. But Ave ask your attention to a test which 
cannot be questioned. We will present for your consideration a 
series of atrocities, perpetrated, not by individuals in secret, but 
in open day by the slave-holding populace. 

We have seen that two of the southern papers we have quoted, 
threaten abolitionists with the stake. This awful and horrible 
punishment has been banished, by the progress of civilization, 
from the whole of Christendom, with the single exception of the 
American slave States. It is scarcely necessary to say, that 
even in them, it is unknown to the laws, although familiar to 
the people. It is also deserving of remark, that the two jour- 
nals which have made this atrocious threat were published, not 
among the rude borderers of our frontier settlements, but in the 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 521 

populous cities of Charleston and New Orleans, the very centres 
of southern refinement. 

"Tuscaloosa (Ala.), June 20, 1827. — The negro [one who had 
killed a Mr. M'Neilly] was taken before a justice of the peace, who 
waived his 'authority, perhaps through fear, as a crowd of persons had 
collected, to the number of seventy or eighty, near Mr. People's [the 
justice's] house. He acted as president of the mob, and put the vote, 
when it was decided that he should be immediately executed by being 
burned to death. The sable culprit was led to a tree, and tied to it, 
and a large quantity of pine knots collected and placed around him, 
and the fatal torch applied to the pile, even against the remonstrances 
of several gentlemen who were present, and the miserable being was 
in a short time burned to ashes. This is the second negro who has 
been thus put to death, without judge or jury, in this country." 

On the 28th of April, 1836, a free negro was arrested in St. 
Louis (Missouri) and committed to jail on a charge of murder. 
A mob assembled and demanded him of the jailer, who surren- 
dered him. The negro was then chained to a tree a short dis- 
tance from the Court House, and burned to death. 

" After the flames had surrounded their prey, and when his clothes 
where in a blaze all over him, his eyes burnt out of his head, and his 
mouth seemingly parched to a cinder, some one in the crowd, more 
compassionate than the rest, proposed to put an end to his misery by 
shooting him, when it was replied that it would be of no use, since he 
was already out of his pain. ' No,' said the wretch, ' I am not, I am 
suffering as much as ever ; shoot me, shoot me.' ' No, no,' said one 
of the fiends who was standing about the sacrifice they were roasting, 
'he shall not be shot, I would sooner slacken the fire, if that would 
increase his misery ; ' and the man who said this was, we under- 
stand, an officer of justice." Alton Telegraph. 

" We have been informed that the slave William, who murdered his 
master (Huskey) some weeks since, was taken by a party a few days 
since from the sheriff o£ Hot Spring, and burned alive ! yes, tied up to 
the limb of a tree and a fire built under him, and consumed in a slow 
lingering torture," Arkansas Gazette, Oct. 20, 1836. 

The Natchez Free Trader, lQth June, 1842, gives a horrible 
account of the execution of the negro, Joseph, on the 5th of that 
month for murder. 

" The body," says that paper, " was taken and chained to a tree im- 
mediately on the bank of the Mississippi, on what is called Union 
Point. The torches were lighted and placed in the pile. He watched 
unmoved the curling flame as it grew, until it began to entwine itself 
around and feed upon his body ; then he sent forth cries of agony 



522 jay's works. 

painful to the ear, begging some one to blow bis brains out ; at the 
same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple 
with which the chain was fastened to the tree, not being well secured, 
drew out, and he leaped from the burning pile. At that moment the 
sharp ring of several rifles was heard, and the body of the negro fell a 
corpse to the ground. He was picked up by two or three, and again 
thrown into the fire and consumed." 

"Another Negro Burned. — "VVe learn from the clerk of the 
Highlander, that while wooding a short distance below the mouth of 
the Red River, they were invited to stop a short time and see another 
negro burned." N. 0. Bulletin. 

Thus we see that burning negroes alive is treated as a specta- 
cle, and strangers are invited to witness it. The victim of this 
exhibition w r as the negro Enoch, said to have been an accom- 
plice of Joseph, and was burned a few days after the other. 

We have thus given you no less than six instances of human 
beings publicly burned alive in four slave States, and in each 
case w T ith entire impunity to the miscreants engaged in the hor- 
rible murder. But these were cases which happened to be 
reported in the newspapers, and with which we happened to 
become acquainted. There is reason to believe that these exe- 
cutions are not of rare occurrence, and that many of them, either 
through indifference or policy, are not noticed in the southern 
papers. 

A recent traveller remarks : 

" Just before I reached Mobile, two men were burned alive there in 
a slow fire in the open air, in the presence of the gentlemen of the 
city. No word was breathed of the transaction in the newspapers." 
Martineau's Society in America, Vol. I, p. 373. 

But the murderous spirit deplored by the Governors of Ken- 
tucky and Alabama, and the " frightful deluge of human blood " 
complained of by the New Orleans editor, had no reference to 
the murder of negroes. Men who can enjoy the sight of ne- 
groes writhing in flames, and are permitted by the civil authori- 
ties to indulge in such exhibitions, will not be very scrupulous 
in taking the lives of each other. It is well known how inces- 
santly the work of human slaughter is going on among them ; 
and no reader of their public journals can be ignorant of the 
frequent occurrence of their deadly street fights. But, for the 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 523 

reason already given, we meddle not with these. We charge 
the slave-holding community, as such, with sanctioning murder, 
and protecting the perpetrators, and setting the laws at defi- 
ance. This we know is a grievous charge, and most grievous 
the proof of it. But mistake not our meaning. God forbid we 
should deny that many of the community to which we refer, 
utterly abhor the atrocities we are about to detail. We speak of 
the murderous feelings of the slave-holding community, just as 
we speak of the politics, the manners, and the morals of any other 
community, freely acknowledging that there are numerous and 
honorable exceptions. For the general truth of our assertion, 
we appeal to the authorities and the facts we have already laid 
before you, and to those we are about to offer. 

You have already seen that the pro-slavery press has recom- 
mended the murder of such northern abolitionists as may be 
caught in the South ; Ave now ask your attention to the efforts 
made by the slave-holders to get prominent abolitionists into 
their power. 

In 1831, a citizen of Massachusetts established a newspaper 
at Boston, called the Liberator, and devoted to the cause of 
negro emancipation. The undertaking was perfectly legal, and 
he himself, having never been in Georgia, had of course vio- 
lated none of her laws. The Legislature, however, forthwith 
passed a law, offering a bribe of $5000 to any person who 
would arrest and bring to trial and conviction, in Georgia, the 
editor and publisher of the Boston paper. This most atrocious 
law was "approved" on the 26th of December, 1831, by 
William Lumi'KIN, the Governor. The object of the bribe 
could have been no other than the abduction and murder 
of the conductor of the paper — his trial and conviction under 
Georgia laws being a mere pretence : the Georgia courts have 
as much jurisdiction over the press in Paris as in Boston. A 
Lynch court was the only one that could have taken cognizance 
jof the offence, and its proceedings would undoubtedly have 
been both summary and sanguinary. 

The horrible example thus set by the Georgia Legislature 
was not without its followers. 



524 jay's works. 

At a meeting of slave-holders at Sterling, Sept. 4, 1835, it 
was formally recommended to the Governor to issue a procla- 
mation, offering the $5000 appropriated by the Act of 1831, as 
a reward for the apprehension of either of ten persons named in 
the resolution, citizens of New York and Massachusetts, and 
one a subject of Great Britain ; not one of whom it was even 
pretended had ever set his foot on the soil of Georgia. 

The Milledgeville (Ga.) Federal Union, of Feb. 1, 1836, 
contained an offer of $10,000 for kidnapping A. A. Phelps, a 
clergyman residing in the city of New York. 

The Committee of Vigilance of the Parish of East Feliciana 
offered in the Louisiana Journal of 15th of Oct. 1835, $50,000 
to any person who would deliver into their hands Arthur 
Tappan, a New York merchant. 

At a public meeting of the citizens of Mount Meigs, Alabama, 
13th of August, 1836, the Honorable (!) Bedford Ginress in 
the chair, a reward of $50,000 was offered for the apprehension 
of Arthur Tappan, or La Roy Sunderland, a clergyman of the 
Methodist Church residing in New York. 

Let us now witness the practical operation of that murderous 
spirit which dictated the foregoing villanous bribes. We have 
already seen the conduct of the slave-holding community to 
negro offenders ; we are now to notice its tender mercies to men 
of its own color. 

In 1835, there was a real or affected apprehension of a ser- 
vile insurrection in the State of Mississippi. The slave-holders, 
as usual on such occasions, were exceedingly frightened, and 
were exceedingly cruel. A pamphlet was afterwards pub- 
lished, entitled "Proceedings of the Citizens of Madison County, 
Miss., at Livingston, in July, 1835, in relation to the trial and 
pimishment of several individuals implicated in a contemplated 
insurrection in this State. Prepared by Thomas Shuckelford, 
Esquire. Printed at Jackson, Miss." This pamphlet, then, is 
the southern account of the affair ; and while it is more minute 
in its details than the narratives published in the newspapers 
at the time, we are not aware that it contradicts them. It may 
be regarded as a sort of semi-official report, put forth by the 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA.. 525 

slave-holders, and published under their implied sanction. It 
appears, from this account, that in consequence of " rumors " 
that the slaves meditated an insurrection — that a colored girl 
had been heard to say that " she was tired of waiting on the 
white folks — wanted to be, her own mistress for the balance of 
her days, and clean up her. own house, &c, " a meeting was 
held at which resolutions were signed, organizing a committee, 
and authorizing them " to bring before them any person or per- 
sons, cither white or black; and try in a summary manner any 
person brought before them, xoith power to hang or whip, being 
always governed by the laws of the land, so far only as they shall 
be applicable to the case in question ; otherwise to act as in their 
discretion shall seem best for the benefit of the country and the 
protection of its citizens.''' 

This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and com- 
missioning a court of judicature, with the power of life and 
death, expressly authorized to act independently of " the laws 
of the land. " 

The constitution of the State of Mississippi, which no doubt 
many of the honorable judges of the court had on other occa- 
sions taken an oath to support, contains the following clause : — 

"No person shall be accused, arrested or detained, except in cases 
ascertained by law, and according to the forms which the same has 
prescribed ; and no person shall be punished, but in virtue of a law 
established and promulgated prior to the offence, and legally applied." 

Previous to the organization of this court, five slaves had 
already been hung by the people. The court, or rather, as it 
was modestly called by the meeting who erected it, " the com- 
mittee," proceeded to try Dr. Joshua Cotton, of New England. 
It was proved to the satisfaction of the committee that he had 
been detected in many low tricks — that he was deficient in 
feeling and affection for his second wife — that he had traded 
with negroes — that he had asked a negro boy whether the 
slaves were whipped much, how he would like to be free, <fcc. 
It is stated that Cotton made a confession that he had been aim- 
ing to bring about a conspiracy. The committee condemned 

him to BE IIANGED IN AN HOUR AFTER SENTENCE. 
45 



526 jay's works. 

"William Saunders, a native of Tennessee, was next tried. 
He was convicted " of being often out at night, and giving no 
satisfactory explanation for so doing" — of equivocal conduct — 
of being intimate with Cotton, &c. Whereupon, by a unani- 
mous vote, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hung. He 
was executed with Cotton on the 4th of July. 

Albe Dean, of Connecticut, was next tried. He was con- 
victed of being a lazy, indolent man, having veiy little preten- 
sions to honesty — of " pretending to make a living by construct- 
ing washing machines " — of " often coming to the owners of 
runaways, to intercede with the masters to save them from a 
whipping." He was sentenced to be hung, and was executed. 

A. L. Donavan, of Kentucky, was then put on his trial. He 
was suspected of having traded with the negroes — of being 
found in their cabins, and enjoying himself in their society. It 
Avas proved that " at one time he actually undertook to release 
a negro who was tied, which negro afterwards implicated him," 
and that he once told an overseer " it was cruel work to be 
whipping the poor negroes as he was obliged to do." The com- 
mittee were satisfied, from the evidence before them, that Dona- 
van was an emissary of those deluded fanatics of the North, 
the abolitionists. He was condemned to be hung, and suffered 
accordingly. 

Ruel Blake was next tried, condemned and hung. " He 
protested his innocence to the last, and said his life was sworn 
away." 

Here we have a record of no less than ten men, five black 
and five white, probably all innocent of the crime alleged 
against them, deliberately and publicly put to death by the 
slave-holders, without the shadow of legal authority. 

The Maysville (Ken.) Gazette, in announcing Donavan's 
murder, says, " He formerly belonged to Maysville, and was a 
much respected citizen." 

A letter from Donavan to his wife, written just before his 
execution, and published in the Maysville paper, says : 

" I am doomed to die to-morrow at twelve o'clock, on a charge of 
having been concerned in a negro insurrection, in this State, among 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 527 

many other whites. We are not tried by a regular jury, but by a com- 
mittee of planters appointed for the purpose, who have not time to 
wait on a person for evidence. . x . . . Now I must close by saying, 
before my Maker and Judge, that I go into his presence as innocent of 

this charge as when I was born I must bid you a final farewell, 

hoping that the God of the widow and the fatherless will give you 
grace to bear this most awful sentence." 

And now, did these butcheries by the Mississippi planters 
excite the indignation of the slave-holding communities ? Re- 
ceive the answer from an editor of the Ancient Dominion, 
replying to the comments of a northern newspaper. 

" The Journal may depend upon it that the Cottons and the Saun- 
derses, men confessing themselves guilty of inciting and plotting insur- 
rection, will be hanged up wherever caught, and that without the 
formality of a legal trial. Northern or southern, such will be their inev- 
itable doom, tfor our part, we applaud the transaction, and none in 
our opinion can condemn it, who have not a secret sympathy with the 
Garrison sect If northern sympathy and effort are to be cooled and 
extinguished by such cases, it proves but this, that the South ought to 
feel little confidence in the professions it receives from that quarter." 
Richmond Whig. 

About the time of the massacre in Clinton county, another 
awful tragedy was performed at Vicksburg in the same State. 
Five men, said to be gamblers, were hanged by the mob on 
the 5 th July, in open day. 

The Louisiana Advertiser, of 13th July, says: 

" These unfortunate men claimed to the last, the privilege of Amer- 
ican citizens, the trial by jury, and professed themselves willing to sub- 
mit to anything their country would legally inflict upon them ; but we 
are sorry to say, their petition was in vain. The black musicians were 
ordered to strike up, and the voices of the supplicants were drowned 
by the fife and drum. Mr. Riddle, the Cashier of the Planters' Bank, 
ordered them to play Yankee Doodle. The unhappy sufferers fre- 
quently implored a drink of water, but they were refused." 

The sympathy of the Louisiana editor, so different from his 
brother of Richmond, was probably owing to the fact, that the 
murdered men were accused of being gamblers, and not aboli- 
tionists. 

When we said these five men were hung by the mob, we did 
not mean what Chancellor Harper calls the " democratic rabble." 



528 jay's works. 

It seems the cashier of a bank, a man to whom the slave-holders 
entrust the custody of their money, officiated on the occasion as 
Master of Ceremonies. 

A few days after the murders at Vicksburg, a negro named 
Vincent was sentenced by a Lynch club at Clinton, Miss., to 
receive three hundred lashes, for an alleged participation In 
an intended insurrection. We copy from the Clinton Gazette : 

" On Wednesday evening Vincent was carried out to receive his 
stripes, but the assembled multitude were in favor of hanging him, 
A vote was accordingly fairly taken, and the hanging party had it by 
an overwhelming majority, as the politicians say. He was remanded 
to prison. On the day of execution a still larger crowd was assembled, 
and fearing that the public sentiment might have changed in regard 
to his fate, after everything favorable to the culprit was alleged which 
could be said, the vote was taken, and his death was demanded by the 
people. In pursuance of this sentiment, so unequivocally expressed, 
he was led to a black jack, and suspended to one of its branches. We 

APPROVE ENTIRELY OF THE PROCEEDINGS ; THE PEOPLE nAVE 
ACTED PROPERLY." 

Thus sixteen human beings were deliberately and publicly 
murdered, by assembled crowds, in different parts of the State 
of Mississippi, within little more than one week, in open de- 
fiance of the laws and constitution of the State. 

And now, we ask, what notice did the chief magistrate of 
Mississippi, sworn to support her constitution, sworn to execute 
her laws — what notice, we ask, did he take of these horrible 
massacres ? Why, at the next session of the Legislature, 
Governor Lynch, addressing them in reference to abolition, re- 
marked : 

" Mississippi has given a practical demonstration of feeling on this 
exciting subject, that may serve as an impressive admonition to offend- 
ers ; and however we may regret the occasion, we are constrained to 
admit that necessity will sometimes prompt a summary mode of trial 
and punishment unknown to the law." 

The iniquity and utter falsehood of this declaration, as applied 
to the transactions alluded to, are palpable. If the victims were 
innocent, no necessity required their murder. If guilty, no ne- 
cessity required their execution contrary to law. There was no 
difficulty in securing their persons and bringing them to trial. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 529 

In 1841, an unsuccessful attempt was made in Kentucky to 
murder a man. The assailants were arrested and lodged in jail 
for trial. Their fate is thus related in a letter by an eye-witness, 
published in the Cincinnati Gazette : 

"Williamstown, Ky., July 11, 1841. 
"The unfortunate men, Lyman Couch and Smith Maythe, were 
taken out of jail on Saturday about 12 o'clock, and taken to the ground 
where they committed the horrid deed on Utterback, and at 4 o'clock 
were nuNG on the tree where Utterback lay when his throat was cut. 
The jail was opened by force. I suppose there were from four to 
seven hundred people engaged in it. Resistance was all in vain. 
There were three speeches made to the mob, but all in vain. They al- 
lowed the prisoners the privilege of clergy for about five hours, and then 
observed that they had made their peace with God, and they deserved to 
die. The mob was conducted with coolness and order, more so than I 
ever heard of on such occasions. But such a day was never witnessed 
in our little village, and I hope never will be again." 

The fact that this atrocity was perpetrated in " our little vil- 
lage," and by a rural population, affords an emphatic and horrible 
indication of the state of morals in one of the oldest and best 
of our slave States. 

Would that we could here close these fearful narratives ; but 
another and more recent instance of that ferocious lawlessness 
which slavery has engendered, must still be added. The follow- 
ing facts are gathered from the Norfolk ( Va.) Beacon, of 19th 
Nov., 1842. 

George W. Lore was, in April, 1842, convicted in Alabama, 
on cix-cumstantial evidence, of the crime of murder. The Su- 
preme Court granted a new trial, remarking, as is stated in another 
paper, that the testimony on which he was convicted was " unfit 
to be received by any court of justice recognized among civilized 
nations." In the mean time, Lore escaped from jail, and was 
afterwards arrested. He was seized by a mob, who put it to 
vote, whether he should be surrendered to the civil authority or 
be hung. Of 132 votes, 130 were for immediate death ; and he 
was accordingly hung at Spring Hill, Bourbon County, on the 
4th of November. 

And now, what think you of Mr. Calhoun's " most safe and 
stable basis for free institutions?" Do you number trial by 
45* 



580 jay's works. 

jury among free institutions ? You see on what basis it rests 
— the will of the slave-holders . " In New York," we are told by 
high southern authority, "you may find loafer, and loco-foco, 
and agrarian, and the most corrupt and depraved of rabbles*" 
But we ask you, where would your life be most secure if charged 
with crime, — amid the rabble of New York, or that of Clinton, 
Vicksburg, and Williamstown ? We think we have fully proved 
our assertion respecting the disregard of human life felt by the 
slave-holding community ; and of com^se their contempt for those 
legal barriers which are erected for its protection. Let us now 
inquire more particularly how far slavery is indeed a stable 
basis on which free institutions may securely rest. 

8. DISREGARD FOR CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATIONS. 

•Governor McDuffie, in his speech of 1834 to the South Caro- 
lina Legislature, characterized the Federal Constitution as "that 
miserable mockery of blurred, and obliterated, and tattered 
parchment." Judging from their conduct, the slave-holders, 
while fully concurring with the Governor in his contempt for 
the national parchment, have quite as little respect for their own 
State constitution and laws. 

•The " tattered parchment " of which Mr. McDuffie speaks, de- 
clares that " the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." — Art. 
IV, Sec. 2. Notwithstanding this express provision, there are 
in almost every slave State, if not in all, laws for seizing, impris- 
oning, and then selling as slaves for life, citizens having black 
or yellow complexions, entering within their borders. This is 
done under pretence that the individuals are supposed to be 
fugitives from bondage. When circumstances forbid such a sup- 
position, other devices are adopted for nullifying the provision 
we have quoted. By a law of Louisiana, every free negro or 
mulatto, arriving on board any vessel as a mariner or passenger, 
shall be immediately imprisoned till the departure of the vessel, 
when he is to be compelled to depart in her. If such free negro 
or mulatto returns to the State, he is to be imprisoned for five 
years. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 531 

The jailer of Savannah some time since reported ten stew- 
ards as being in his custody. These were free citizens of other 
States, deprived of their liberty solely on account of the com- 
plexion their Maker had given them, and in direct violation of 
the express language of the Federal Constitution. If any free 
negro or mulatto enters the State of Mississippi, for any cause, 
however urgent, any white citizen may cause him to be punished 
by the sheriff with thirty-nine lashes, and if he does not imme- 
diately thereafter leave the State, he is sold as a slave. 

In Maryland, a free negro or mulatto, coining into the State, 
is fined $20, and if he returns he is fined $500, and on default 
of payment, is sold as A slave. Truly indeed have the slave- 
holders rendered the Constitution a blurred, obliterated, and tat- 
tered parchment. But whenever this same Constitution can, by 
the grossest perversion, be made instrumental in upholding and 
perpetuating human bondage, then it acquires, for the time, a 
marvellous sanctity in their eyes, and they are seized with a 
holy indignation at the very suspicion of its profanation. 

The readiness with which southern Governors prefer the most 
false and audacious claims, under color of constitutional author- 
ity, exhibits a state of society in which truth and honor are but 
little respected. 

In 1833, seventeen slaves effected their escape from Virginia 
in a boat, and finally reached New York. To recover these 
slaves as such, a judicial investigation in New York would be 
necessary, and the various claimants would be required to prove 
their property. A more convenient mode presented itself. The 
Governor of Virginia made a requisition on the Executive of 
New York for them as fugitive felons, and on this requisition, a 
warrant was issued for their arrest and surrender. The pre- 
tended felony was stealing the boat in which they had escaped. 

In 1839, a slave escaped from Virginia on board of a vessel 
bound to New York. It was suspected, but without a particle of 
proof, that some of the crew had favored his escape ; and imme- 
diately the master made oath that three of the sailors, naming 
them, had feloniously stolen the slave ; and the Governor, well 
knowing there was no slave-market in New York, and that no 



532 jay's works. 

man could there be held in slavery, had the hardihood to demand 
the surrender of the mariners on the charge of grand larceny . 
and, in his correspondence with the Governor of New York, 
declared the slave was worth six or seven hundred dollars, and 
remarked that stealing was " recognized as a crime by all laws, 
human and divine." 

In 1841, a female slave, belonging to a man named Flournoy, 
in Georgia, was discovered on board a vessel about to sail for 
New York, and was recovered by her master. It was afterwards 
supposed from the woman's story, that she had been induced by 
one of the passengers to attempt her escape. Whereupon Flour- 
noy made oath that John Greenman did feloniously steal his 
slave. But the Governor of New York had already refused to 
surrender citizens of his State on a charge so palpably false and 
absurd. It was therefore deemed necessary to trump up a very 
different charge against the accused ; and hence Flournoy made 
a second affidavit, that John Greenman did feloniously steal and 
take away three blankets, tivo shawls, three frocks, one pair of ear- 
rings, and two finger-rings, the property of deponent. Armed with 
these affidavits, the Governor demanded the surrender of Green- 
man under the Constitution. Not an intimation was given by 
His Excellency, when he made the demand, of the real facts of 
the case, which, in a subsequent correspondence, he was com- 
pelled to admit. It turned out that the woman, instead of being 
stolen, went voluntarily, and no doubt joyfully, on board the 
vessel ; and that the wearing apparel, &c, were the clothes and 
ornaments worn by her ; nor was there a pretence that Green- 
man had ever touched them, or ever had them in his possession. 

We have said that the slave-holders hold their own laws and 
constitutions in the same contempt as those of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, whenever they conflict with the security and perma- 
nency of slavery. One of the most inestimable of constitutional 
privileges is trial by jury ; and this, as we have seen, is 
trampled under foot with impunity, at the mandate of the slave- 
holders. Even John Tyler, as it appears, is for inflicting sum- 
mary punishment on abolitionists, by a Lynch club, " without 
resorting to any other tribunal." 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 533 

We now proceed to inquire how far they respect the liberty 
of speech and of the press. 

9. LIBERTY OF SPEECH. 

The whole nation witnessed the long successful efforts of the 
slave-holders in Congress, by their various gag resolutions, and 
through the aid of recreant northern politicians, to destroy all 
freedom of debate adverse to " the peculiar institution." They 
were themselves ready to dwell, in debate, on the charms of 
human bondage ; but when a member took the other side of the 
question, then, indeed, he was out of order, the Constitution was 
outraged, and the Union endangered. We all know the violent 
threats which have been used, to intimidate the friends of human 
rights from expressing their sentiments in the national legislature. 

" As long," says Governor McDuffie to the South Carolina Legisla- 
ture, " as long as the halls of Congress shall be open to the discussion 
of this question, we can have neither peace nor security." 

The Charleston Mercury is, on this subject, very high author- 
ity; and in 1837 its editor announced that 

" Public opinion in the South would now, we are sure, justify an imme- 
diate resort to force ly the southern delegation, even on the floor of 
Congress, were they forthwith to seize and drag from the hall 
any man who dared to insult them, as that eccentric old showman, John 
Quincy Adams, has dared to do." 

When so much malignity is manifested against the freedom of 
speech, in the very sanctuary of American liberty, it is not to be 
supposed that it will be tolerated in the house of bondage. We 
have already quoted a southern paper, which declares that the 
moment " any private individual attempts to lecture us on the 
evils and immorality of slavery, that very moment his tongue 
shall be cut out and cast upon the dunghill." 

In Marion College, Missouri, there appeared some symptoms 
of anti-slavery feeling among the students. A Lynch club 
assembled, and the Rev. Dr. Ely, one of the professors, appeared 
before them, and denounced abolition, and submitted a series of 
resolutions passed by the faculty, and among them the following : 



534 jay's works. 

" "We do hereby forbid all discussions and public meetings among 
the students upon the subject of domestic slavery." The Lynch- 
ers were pacified, and neither tore down the college nor hung 
up the professors ; but before separating they resolved that they 
would oppose the elevation to office of any man entertaining abo- 
lition sentiments, and would withhold their countenance and 
support from every such member of the community. Indeed, 
it is obvious to any person attentive to the movements of the 
South, that the slave-holders dread domestic far more than 
foreign interference with their darling system. 

10. LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

The constitutions of all the slave States guarantee, in the most 
solemn and explicit terms, the liberty of the press ; but it is 
well understood that there is one exception to its otherwise un- 
bounded license : property in human flesh is too sacred to be 
assailed by the press. The attributes of the Deity may be 
discussed, but not the rights of the master. The characters of 
public, and even of private men, may be vilified at pleasure, 
provided no reproach is flung upon the slave-holder. Every 
abuse in Church or State may be ferreted out and exposed, ex- 
cept the cruelties practised upon the slaves, unless when they 
happen to exceed the ordinary standard of cruelty established 
by general usage. Every measure of policy may be advocated, 
except that of free labor ; every question of right may be ex* 
amined, except that of a man to himself; every dogma in 
theology may be propagated, except that of the sinfulness of 
the slave-code. The very instant the press ventures beyond its 
prescribed limits, the constitutional barriers erected for its pro« 
tection sink into the dust, and a censorship, the more stern and 
vindictive from being illegal, crushes it into submissign. The 
midnight burglary perpetrated upon the Charleston Post Office 
and the conflagration of the anti-slavery papers found in it, are 
well known. These papers had been sent to distinguished citi« 
zens, but it was deemed inexpedient to permit them to read facts 
and arguments against slavery. Vast pains have been taken to 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 535 

keep slave-holders as well as others ignorant of every fact and 
argument that militates against the system. Hence Mr. Cal- 
houn's famous bill, authorizing every southern postmaster to 
abstract from the mails every paper relating to slavery. Hence 
the insane efforts constantly made to expurgate the literature 
of the world of all recognition of the rights of black men. Nov- 
els, annuals, poems, and histories, containing sentiments hostile 
to human bondage, are proscribed at the South, and northern 
publishers have had the extreme baseness to publish mutilated 
editions for the southern market.* 

In some of the slave States laws have been passed establishing 
a censorship of the press, for the exclusive and special benefit 
of the slaveholders. Some time since an anti-slavery pamphlet 
was mailed at New York, directed to a gentleman in Virginia. 
Presently a letter was received from William Wilson, postmaster 
at Lexington, Va., saying : 

" I have to advise you that a law, passed at the last session of the 
Legislature of this State, which took effect on the first day of this 
month, makes it the duty of the postmasters or their assistants to report 
to some magistrate (under penalty of from $50 to $200), the receipt 
of all such publications at his office ; and if, on examination, the magis- 
trate is of opinion they come under the provision of the law, it is his 
duty to have them burnt in his presence — which operation was per- 
formed on the above mentioned pamphlet this morning." 

The Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, a well-known zealous 
opponent of abolition, edited, in 1835, ".The Baltimore Religious 
Magazine." A number of this magazine contained an article 
from a correspondent, entitled " Bible-Slavery." The tone of 
this article not suiting the slave-breeders of Petersburg, (Va.,) 
the subscribers were deprived of the numbers forwarded to them 
through the post-office of that town. The magazines were taken 
from the office, and on the 8th of May, 1838, were burnt in the 
street, before the door of the public reading-room, in the presence 
and by the direction of the mayor and recorder ! 

*The Harpers, of New York, in reply to a letter from the South, complain- 
ing of the anti-slavery sentiments in a book they had recently published, 
stated : " Since the receipt of your letter we have published an edition of the 
1 Woods and Fields,' in which the offensive matter has been omitted." 



536 jay's works. 

It is surely unnecessary to remark, that this Virginia law is 
in contemptuous violation of the constitution of Virginia, and of 
the authority of the Federal Government. The act of Congress 
requires each postmaster to deliver the papers which come to his 
office to the persons to whom they are directed, and they require 
him to take an oath to fulfil his duty. The Virginia law imposes 
duties on an officer over whom they have no control, utterly at 
variance with his oath, and the obligations under which he 
assumed the office. If the postmaster must select, under a 
heavy penalty, for a public bonfire, all papers bearing on slavery, 
why may he not be hereafter required to select, for the same 
fate, all papers hostile to Popery ? Yet similar laws are now in 
force in various slave States. 

Not only is this espionage exercised over the mail, but meas- 
ures are taken to keep the community in ignorance of what is 
passing abroad in relation to slavery, and what opinions are 
elsewhere held respecting it. 

On the first of August, 1842, an interesting address was de- 
livered in Massachusetts, by the late Dr. Channing, in relation 
to West India emancipation, embracing, as was natural and 
proper, reflections on American slavery. This address was 
copied into a New York weekly paper, and the number con- 
taining it was offered for sale, as usual, by the agent of the 
periodical at Charleston. Instantly the agent was prosecuted 
by the South Carolina Association, and was held to bail in the 
sum of one thousand dollars, to answer for his crime. Pres- 
ently after, this same agent received for sale a supply of 
" Dickens' Notes on the United States," but having before his 
eyes the fear of the slave-holders, he gave notice in the news- 
papers, that the book would " be submitted to highly intelligent 
members of the South Carolina Association for inspection, and 
IF the sale is approved by them, it will be for sale — if not, 
not." And so the population of one of the largest cities of the 
slave-region were not permitted to read a book they were all 
burning with impatience to see, till the volume had been first 
inspected by a self-constituted board of censors ! The slave- 
holders, however, were hi this instance afraid to put their power 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 537 

to the test ; the people might have rebelled if forbidden to read 
the " Notes," and hence one of the most powerful, effective anti- 
slavery tracts yet issued from the press was permitted to be 
circulated, because people would read what Dickens had writ- 
ten. Surely, you will not accuse us of slander, when we say 
that the slave-holders have abolished the liberty of the press. 
Remember the assertion of the editor of the Missouri Argus : 
" Abolition editors in the slave States will not dare to avow 
their opinions : it would be instant death to them." 

11. MILITARY "WEAKNESS. 

A distinguished foreigner, after travelling in the Southern 
States, remarked that the very aspect of the country bore testi- 
mony that, defenceless and exposed as they are, it would be 
madness to hazard a civil war ; and surely no people in the 
world have more cause to shrink from an appeal to arms. "We 
find at the South no one element oi military strength. Slavery, 
as we have seen, checks the progress of population, of the arts, 
of enterprise, and of industry. But above all, the laboring 
class, which in other countries affords the materials of which 
armies are composed, is regarded at the South as a most deadly 
foe ; and the sight of a thousand negroes with arms in their 
hands, would send a thrill of terror through the stoutest hearts, 
and excite a panic which no number of the veteran troops of 
Europe could produce. Even now, laws are in force to keep 
arms out of the hands of a population which ought to be a reli- 
ance in danger, but which is dreaded by day and night, in peace 
and war. 

During our revolutionary war, when the idea of negro emanci- 
pation had scarcely entered the imagination of any of our citizens 
— when there were no "fanatic abolitionists," no "incendiary 
publications," no " treasonable " anti-slavery associations ; in 
those palmy days of slavery, no small portion of the southern 
militia were withdrawn from the defence of the country to pro- 
tect the slave-holders from the vengeance of their own bond- 
men ! This you would be assured was abolition slander, were 

46 



538 jay's works. 

not the fact recorded in the national archives. Tlie Secret Jour' 
nal of Congress (Vol. I, p. 105) contains the following re- 
markable and instructive record : 

"March 2dth, 1779. — The committee appointed to take into consid- 
eration the circumstances of the Southern States, and the ways and 
means for their safety and defence, report, That the State of South 
Carolina (as represented by the delegates of the said State, and by 
Mr. Huger, who has come hither at the request of the Governor of 
said State, on purpose to explain the particular circumstances thereof,) 
is unable to make any effectual efforts with militia, by reason of the 
great proportion of ^citizens necessary to remain at home, to prevent 
insurrection among the negroes, and to prevent the desertion of them 
to the enemy. That the state of the country, and the great number 
of these people among them, expose the inhabitants to great clanger, 
from the endeavors of the enemy to excite them to revolt or desert." 

At the first census, in 1790, eleven years after this report, 
and when the slaves had unquestionably greatly increased their 
numbers, they were only 107,094 feiver than the whites. If, 
then, these slaves exposed their masters " to great danger," and 
the militia of South Carolina were obliged to stay at home to 
protect their families, not from the foreign invaders, but the 
domestic enemies, what would be the condition of the little 
blustering nullifying State, with a foreign army on her shores, 
and 335,000 slaves ready to aid it, while her own white popu- 
lation, militia and all, is but as two whites to three blacks ? 

Slave-holders, in answer to the abolitionists, are wont to 
boast of the fidelity and attachment of their slaves ; among 
themselves they freely avow their dread of these same faithful 
and attached slaves, and are fertile in expedients to guard 
against their vengeance. 

It is natural that we should fear those whom we are conscious 
of having deeply injured, and all history and experience testify 
that fear is a cruel passion. Hence the shocking severity with 
which, in all slave countries, attempts to shake off an unrighteous 
yoke are punished. So late even as 1822, certain slaves in 
Charleston were suspected of an intention to rise and assert their 
freedom. No overt act was committed, but certain blacks were 
found who professed to testify against their fellows, and some, 
it is said, confessed their intentions. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 539 

On this ensued one of the most horrible judicial butcheries on 
record. It is not deemed necessary, in the chivalrous Palmetto 
State, to give grand and petit juries the trouble of indicting and 
trying slaves, even when their lives are at stake. A court, con- 
sisting of two justices of the peace and five freeholders, was 
convened for the trial of the accused, and the following were 
the results of their labors : — 

July 2 6 hanged, 

« 12 2 " 

« 26 22 « 

« 30 4 " 

August 9 1 " 

Total 35 « 

Now let it be remembered that this sacrifice of human life 
was made by one of the lowest tribunals in the State ; a 
tribunal consisting of two petty magistrates and five freeholders, 
appointed for the occasion, not possessing a judicial rank, nor 
professing to be learned in the law ; in short, a tribunal which 
would not be trusted to decide the title to an acre of ground — 
we refer not to individuals composing the court, but to the court 
itself; — a court which has not power to take away the land of 
a white man, hangs black men by dozens ! 

Listen to the confessions of the slave-holders with regard to their 
happy dependents ; the men who are so contented under the 
patriarchal system, and whose condition might well excite the 
envy of northern laborers, " the great democratic rabble." 

Governor Hayne, in his message of 1833, warned the South 
Carolina Legislature, that "a state of military preparation 
must always be with us a state of perfect domestic security. A 
profound peace, and consequent apathy, may expose us to the 
danger of domestic insurrection" So it seems the happy slaves 
are to be kept from insurrection by a state of military prepara- 
tion. We have seen that, during the revolutionary tvar, the 
Carolina militia were kept at home watching the slaves, 
instead of meeting the British in the field ; but now it seems 



540 jay's works. 

the same task awaits the militia in a season of profound peace. 
Another South Carolian* admonishes his countrymen thus : 

" Let it never be forgotten that our negroes are truly the Jacobins 
of the country ; that they are the anarchists, and the domestic enemy, 

THE COMMON ENEMY OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY, AND THE BARBARI- 
ANS WHO WOULD, IF THEY COULD, BECOME TnE DESTROYERS OF 
OUR RACE." 

Again, " Hatred to the whites, with the exception, in some cases, of 
attachment to the person and family of the master, is nearly universal 
among the black population. We have then a foe, cherished in our 
very bosoms — a foe willing to draw our life-blood whenever 
the opportunity is offered ; in the mean time intent on doing us all the 
mischief in his power." Southern Religious Telegraph. 

In a debate in the Kentucky Legislature, in 1841, Mr. 
Harding, opposing the repeal of the law prohibiting the im- 
portation of slaves from other States, and looking forward to 
the time Avhen the blacks would greatly out-number the whites, 
exclaimed : 

" In such a state of things, suppose an insurrection of the slaves to 
take place. The master has become timid and fearful, the slave bold 
and daring — the white men, overpowered with a sense of superior 
numbers on the part of the slaves, cannot be embodied together ; every 
man must guard his own hearth and fireside. No man would even dare 
for an hour to leave his own habitation ; if he did, he would exrject on 
his return to find his wife and children massacred. But the slaves, 
with but little more than the shadow of opposition before them, armed 
with the consciousness of superior force and superior numbers on their 
side, animated with the hope of liberty, and maddened with the spirit 
of revenge, embody themselves in every neighborhood, and furiously 
march over the country, visiting every neighborhood with all the 
horrors of civil war and bloodshed. And thus the yoke would be 
transferred from the black to the white man, and the master fall a 
bleeding victim to his own slave." 

Such are the terrific visions which are constantly presenting 
themselves to the affrighted imaginations of the slave-holders ; 
such the character which, among themselves, they attribute to 
their own domestics. 

Attend to one more, and that one an extraordinary confession : 

"We of the South are emphatically surrounded by a dangerous 
class of beings — degraded and stupid savages, who, if they could but 

* The author of " A Refutation of the Calumnies inculcated against the 
Southern and Western States." 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 541 

once entertain the idea that immediate and unconditional death woidd 
not be their portion, would re-act the St. Domingo tragedy. But a 
consciousness, with all their stupidity, that a ten-fold force, superior 
in discipline, if not in barbarity, would gather from the four corners of 
the United States, and slaughter them, keeps them in subjection. But 
to the non-slaveholding States particularly, are we indebted for a per- 
manent safeguard against insurrection. Without their assistance, the 
white population of the South would be too weak to quiet the innate 
desire for liberty, which is ever ready to act itself out with every 
rational creature." Maysville Intelligencer. 

And now we ask you, if all these declarations and confessions 
be true, — and who can doubt it ? — what must be their inevita- 
ble condition, should their soil be invaded by a foreign foe, 
beai-ing the standard of emancipation ? 

In perfect accordance with the above confession, that to the 
non-slaveholding States the South is indebted for a permanent 
safeguard against insurrection, Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, 
uttered these pregnant words in a debate, in 1842, in Congress: 
"The dissolution of the Union will be the dissolu- 
tion OF SLAVEPvY." 

The action of the Federal Government is, we know, controlled 
by the slave interest ; and what testimony does that action bear 
to the military weakness of the South ? Let the reports of its 
high functionaries answer. 

The Secretary of War, in his report for 1842, remarked : 

" The works intended for the more remote southern portion of our 
territory, particularly require attention. Indications are already made 
of designs of the worst character against that region, in the event of 
hostilities from a certain quarter, to which we cannot be insensible." 

The Secretary's fears had been evidently excited by the or- 
ganization of black regiments in the British West Indies, and 
the threats of certain English writers, that a war between the 
two countries would result in the liberation of the slaves. The 
report from the Quarter-Master, General Jessup, a southern 
man, betrays the same anxiety, and in less ambiguous terms : 

" In the event of a war," says he, " with either of the great European 
powers possessing colonies in the West Indies, there will be danger 
of the peninsula of Florida being occupied by BLACKS from the 
Islands. A proper regard for the security of our Southern States 
requires that prompt and efficient measures be adopted to prevent 
such a state of things." 
46* 



542 jay's works. 

The Secretary of the Navy, a slave-holder, hints his fears in 
cautious circumlocution. Speaking of the event of a war with 
any considerable maritime power, he says : 

" It would be a war of incursions aimed at revolution. The first 
blow would be struck at us through our institutions ; " he means, of 
course, " the peculiar institution." He then proceeds to show that the 
enemy would seek success " in arraying what are supposed to be the. 
hostile elements of our social system against each other ; " and he 
admits, that " even in the best event, war on our soil would be the 
more expensive, the more embarrassing, and the more horrible in 
its effects, by compelling us at the same time to oppose an enemy in 
the field, and to guard against all attempts to subvert our social system." 

In plain language, an invading enemy would strike the first 
blow at the slave system, and thus aim at revolution, — a revo- 
lution that would give liberty to two and a half millions of 
human beings ; and such a war Avould be very embarrassing 
to the slave-holders, and the more horrible, because, as formerly 
in South Carolina, a large share of their military force would 
necessarily be employed, not in fighting the enemy, but in guard- 
ing the social, that is, the " patriarchal system." 

No persons are more sensible of their hazardous situation 
than the slave-holders themselves, and hence, as is common with 
people who are secretly conscious of their own weakness, they 
attempt to supply the Avant of strength by a bullying insolence, 
hoping to effect by intimidation what they well know can be 
effected in no other way. This game has long been played, and 
with great success, in Congress. It has been attempted in our 
negotiations with Great Britain, and has signally failed. 

The slave-holders, whatever may be their vaunts, are con- 
scious of their military weakness, and shrink from any contest 
which may cause a foreign army to plant the standard of eman- 
cipation upon their soil. The very idea of an armed negro 
startles their fearful imaginations. This is disclosed on innu- 
merable occasions, but was conspicuously manifested in a debate 
in the Senate. In July, 1842, a bill to regulate enlistments in 
the naval service being under consideration, Mr. Calhoun pro- 
posed an amendment, that negroes should be enlisted only as 
cooks and stewards. He thought it a matter of great consequence 
not to admit blacks into our vessels of national defence. Mr. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 543 

Benton thought all arms, whether on land or sea, ought to be 
borne by the white race. 

Mr. Bagbt : — " In the southern portion of the Union, the 
great object was to keep arms and a knoivledge of arms out of 
the hands of the blacks. The subject addressed itself to every 
southern heart. Self-preservation was the first law of nature, 
and the South must look to that." 

On the motion of Mr. Preston, the bill was so amended as 
to include the army. 

And think you that men, thus in awe of their own dependents, 
shuddering at a musket in the hands of a black, and with a popu- 
lation of two millions and a half of these dreaded slaves, will 
expose themselves to the tremendous consequences of a union 
between their domestic and foreign enemies ? Of the four who 
voted against the British treaty, probably not one would have 
given the vote he did, had he not known to a certainty that the 
treaty would be ratified. 

Think not we are disposed to ridicule the fears of the slave- 
holders, or to question their personal courage. God knows their 
perils are real, and not imaginary ; and who can question, that 
with a hostile British army in the heart of Virginia or Alabama, 
the whole slave-region would presently become one vast scene of 
horror and desolation? Heretofore the invaders of our soil 
were themselves interested in slave property ; now they would 
be zealous emancipationists, and they would be accompanied by 
the most terrific vision which could meet the eye of a slave- 
holder, regiments of black troops, fully equipped and disciplined. 
Surely such a state of things might well appall the bravest 
heart, and palsy the stoutest arm. 

"We have called your attention to the practical influence of 
slavery on various points deeply affecting the public prosperity 
and happiness. These are : 

1. Increase of population. % 7. Disregard for human life. 

2. State of education. 8. Disregard for constitutional 

3. Industry and enterprise. obligations. 

4. Feeling towards the laboring 9. Liberty of speech. 

classes. 10. Liberty of the press. 

5. State of religion. 11. Military weakness. 

6. State of morals. 



544 jay's works. 

You will surely agree with us, that in many of these particu- 
lars, the southern States are sunk far below the ordinary condi- 
tion of civilized nations. 

Let us inquire whether the inferior and unhappy condition of 
the slave States can be ascribed to any natural disadvantage, or 
to any partial or unjust legislation by the Federal Government. 

In the fix'st place, the slave States cannot pretend that they 
have not received their full share of the national domain, and 
that the narrowness of their territorial limits has retarded the 
development of their enterprise and resources. The area of the 
slave States is nearly double that of the free. New York has 
acquired the title of the Empire State ; yet she is inferior 
in size to Virginia, Missouri, Georgia, Louisiana, or North 
Carolina. 

Nor can it be maintained that the free States are in advance 
of the slave States, because from an earlier settlement they had 
the start in the race of improvement. Virginia is not only the 
largest, but the oldest settled State in the confederacy. She, 
together with Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and South 
Carolina, were all settled before Pennsylvania. 

Nor will any slave-holder admit, that Providence has scattered 
his gifts with a more sparing hand at the South than at the 
North. The richness of their soil, the salubrity of their climate, 
the number and magnitude of their rivers, are themes on which 
they delight to dwell. Hence the moral difference between the 
two sections of our republic must arise from other than natural 
causes. It appears also that this difference is becoming wider 
and wider. Of this fact we could give various proofs ; but let 
one suffice. 

At the first census in 1790, the free population of the 

present free States and Territories was 1,930,125 

Of the slave States and Territories, 1,394,847 

Difference, • • • • 535,278 

By the last census, 1840, the same population in the 

free States and Territories was 9,782,415 

In the slave States and Territories, 4,793,738 

Difference, 4,988,677 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 545 

Thus it appears that in 1790 the free population of the South 
was seventy-two per cent, of that of the North, and that in 
1840 it was only forty-nine per cent. ; while the difference in 
1840 is more than nine times as great as it was in 1790. 

Fifty years have given the North an increased preponderance 
of about four and a half millions of free citizens. Another fifty 
years will increase this preponderance in a vastly augmented 
ratio. And now we ask you, why this downward course ? Is 
it because the interests of the slave-holders are not represented 
in the national councils ? Let us see. We have already shown 
you that the free population is only forty-nine per cent, of that 
of the northern States ; that is, the inhabitants of the free 
States are more than double the free inhabitants of the slave 
States. Now, what is the proportion of members of Congress 
from the two sections ? 

In the Senate, the slave States have precisely as many as the 
free ; and in the lower House, their members are sixty-five per 
cent, of those from the free States.* 

The Senate has a veto on every law ; and as one half of that 
body are slave-holders, it follows, of course, that no law can be 
passed without their consent. Nor has any bill passed the Sen- 
ate since the organization of the government, but by the votes 
of slave-holders. It is idle, therefore, for them to impute their 
depressed condition to unjust and partial legislation, since they 
have from the very first controlled the action of Congress. Not 
a law has been passed, not a treaty ratified, but by their votes. 

Nor is this all. Appointments under the Federal Govern- 
ment are made by the President, with the consent of the Senate, 
and of course the slave-holders have, and always have had, a 
veto on every appointment. There is not an officer of the Fed- 
eral Government to whose appointment slave-holding members 
of the Senate have not consented. Yet all this gives but an 
inadequate idea of the political influence exercised by the people 
of the slave States in the election of President, and consequently 
' over the policy of his administration. In consequence of the 

* 135 from the free and 88 members from the slave States. According to 
I free population, the South would have only 66 members. 



546 jay's works. 

peculiar apportionment of Presidential electors among the States, 
and the operation of the rule of federal numbers — whereby/ 
for the purpose of estimating the representative population, 
five slaves are counted as three white men — most extraordinary- 
results are exhibited at every election of President. In the 
election of 1848, the electors chosen were 290; of these 1G9 
were from the free, and 121 from the slave States. 

The popular vote in the free States was 2,029,551, or one 
elector to 12,007 voters. 

The popular vote in the slave States was 845,050, or one 
elector to 7,545 voters.* 

Even this disproportion, enormous as it is, is greatly aggra- 
vated in regard to particular States. 

New York gave 455,761 votes, and had 36 electors. 

Virginia ^ 

Maryland V gave 242,547 " " 36 « 

N. Carolina) 

Ohio gave 328,489 " « 28 " 

Delaware 

Georgia 

Louisiana 

Alabama }-gave 237,811 " " 38 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Texas 

These facts address themselves to the understanding of all, 
and prove, beyond cavil, that the slave States have a most unfair 
and unreasonable representation in Congress, and a very dispro- 
portionate share in the election of President. 

Nor can these States complain that they are stinted in the 
distribution of the patronage of the national government. The 
rule of federal numbers, confined by the Constitution to the 
apportionment of representatives, has been extended, by the 
influence of the slave-holders, to other and very different sub- 
jects. Thus, the distribution among the States of the surplus 
revenue, and of the proceeds of the public lands, was made 
according to this same iniquitous rule. 

* South Carolina had nine electors, chosen by the Legislature. These are 
deducted in the calculation. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 547 

It is not to be supposed that the slave-holders have failed to 
avail themselves of their influence in the Federal Government. 
A very brief statement will convince you, that if they are now 
feeble and emaciated, it is not because they have been deprived 
of their share of the loaves and fishes. 

By law, midshipmen and cadets, at "West Point, are appointed 
according to the federal ratio; thus have the slave-holders 
secured to themselves an additional number of officers in the 
army and navy, on account of their slaves. 

Reflect for a moment on the vast patronage wielded by the 
President of the United States, and then recollect, that should 
the present incumbent (General Taylor) serve his full term, the 
office will have been filled no less than ffty-txvo years out of 
sixty-four by slave-holders ! * 

Of twenty-one Secretaries of State, appointed up to 5th of 
March, 1849, only six have been taken from the free States. 

For thirty-seven years out of sixty the chair of the House of 
Eepresentatives has been filled, and its committees appointed by 
slave-holders. 

Of the Judges of the Supreme Court, eighteen have been 
taken from the slave, and but fourteen from the free States. 

In 1842, the United States were represented at foreign courts 
by nineteen Ministers and Charges d' Affaires. Of these fat 
offices, no less than thirteen were assigned to slave-holders ! 

Surely, surely, if the South be wanting hi every element of 
prosperity — if ignorance, barbarity and poverty be her chai'ac- 
teristics, it is not because she has not exercised her due influence 
in the general government, or received her share of its honors 
and emoluments. 

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE. 

If, then, with all the natural and political advantages we have 
enumerated, the progress of the slave States is still downward, 
and has been so, compared with the other sections of the country, 
since the first organization of the Government, what are the 

* Except one month by General Harrison 



548 jay's works. 

anticipations of the distant future, which sober reflection au- 
thorizes us to form ? The causes which now retard the increase 
of their population must continue to operate, so long as slavery 
lasts. Emigrants from the North, and from foreign countries, 
will, as at present, avoid their borders, within which no attrac- 
tions will be found for virtue and industry. On the other hand, 
many of the young and enterprising will flee from the lassitude, 
the anarchy, the wretchedness engendered by slavery, and seek 
their fortunes in lands where law affords protection, and where 
labor is honored and rewarded. 

In the meantime, especially in the cotton States, the slaves 
will continue to increase in a ratio far beyond the whites, and 
will at length acquire a fearful preponderance. 

At the first census, in every slave State there was a very large 
majority of whites ; now, the slaves out-number the whites in 
South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and the next census 
will unquestionably add Florida and Alabama, and probably 
Georgia, to the number of negro States. 

And think you that this is the conntry, and this the age, in 
which the republican maxim that the majority must govern, 
can be long and barbarously reversed ? Think you that the 
majority of the people in the cotton States, cheered and en- 
couraged as they will be by the sympathy of the world, and the 
example of the West Indies, will forever tamely submit to be 
beasts of burden for a few lordly planters ? And remember, we 
pray you, that the number and physical strength of the negroes 
will increase in a much gx*eater ratio than that of their masters. 

In 1 700 the whites were to the slaves in 

N. Carolina as 2.80 to 1, now as 1.97 to 1 

S. Carolina, 1.31 to 1, " .79 to 1 

Georgia, 1.76 to 1, " 1.44 to 1 

Tennessee, 13.35 to 1, " 3.49 to 1 

Kentucky, 5.16 to 1, " 3.23 to 1 

Maryland and Virginia, the great breeding States, have 
reduced their stock within the last few years, having been 
tempted, by high prices, to ship off thousands and tens of thou- 
sands to the markets of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 549 

But these markets are already glutted, and human flesh has 
fallen in value from fifty to seventy-five per cent. Nor is it 
probable that the great staple of Virginia and Maryland will 
hereafter afford a bounty on its production. In these States 
slave-labor is unprofitable, and the bondman is of but little 
value, save as an article of exportation. The cotton cultivation 
in the East Indies, by cheapening the article, will close the 
markets in the South, and thus it guarantees the abolition of 
slavery in the breeding States. When it shall be found no 
longer profitable to raise slaves for the market, the stock on hand 
will be driven South and sold for what it may fetch, and free 
labor substituted in its place. This process will be. attended 
with results disastrous to the cotton States. To Virginia and 
Maryland, it will open a new era of industry, prosperity and 
wealth ; and the industrious poor, the " mean whites " of the 
South, will remove within their borders, thus leaving the slave- 
holders more defenceless than ever. 

And what will be the condition of such of the poor whites as 
shall then remain in the slave States ? The change to which 
we have referred will necessarily aggravate every present evil. 
Ignorance, vice, idleness, lawless violence, dread of insurrection, 
anarchy, and a haughty and vindictive aristocracy will all com- 
bine Avith augmented energy in crushing them to the earth. 
And from what quarter can they look for redemption ? Think 
you the planting nobility will ever grant freedom to their serfs, 
from sentiments of piety or patriotism ? Remember that the 
clergy of all sects and ranks, many of them " Christian brokers 
in the trade of blood," unite in bestowing their benedicton on 
the system as a Christian institution, and in teaching the slave- 
holders that they wield the whip as European monarchs the 
sceptre, " by the grace of God." Remember that the beautiful 
ind affecting contrast between the prosperity of the North and 
he desolation of the South, already presented to you, was drawn 
by "W. C. Preston, of hanging notoriety. The great slave-holders 
lave no idea of surrendering the personal importance and the 
political influence they derive from their slaves. The Calhouns, 
Bootes, and Prestons, all go for everlasting slavery. 

47 



550 JAY S WORKS. 

Unquestionably there are many of the smaller slave-holders 
who would embrace abolition sentiments, were they permitted 
to examine the subject ; but at present they are kept in igno- 
rance. If, then, the fetters of the slave are not to be broken by 
the master, by whom is he to be liberated ? In the course of 
time, a hostile army, invited by the Aveakness or the arrogance 
of the South, may land on her shores. Then, indeed, emanci- 
pation will be given, but the gift may be bathed in the blood of 
the whites and of their children. Or the people — for they 
will be the people — may resolve to be free, and the dearest 
interests of thousands may be sacrificed in the contest. 

Such, inhabitants of New Mexico and California, is the de- 
testable institution which a few haughty and selfish men are 
endeavoring to force upon you in order to augment their own 
political power, and to open new markets for their human cattle ; 
and such are the calamities which their success will entail upon 
you and your posterity for ages to come. Every dictate of 
patriotism and of Christian benevolence impels us to resist to the 
uttermost the extension of this abomination of desolation over 
the new, fair, and vast addition recently made to our Federal 
Union. Much as we may prize this splendid acquisition, may it 
be forever lost to us rather than it should be converted by the 
American people into a region of ignorance, vice, misery, and 
degradation by the establishment of human bondage. "We wish 
you to be a free and happy portion of our great Republic, but if 
the condition of your union with us be your submission to the 
mandates of the slave-holders, we counsel you, we implore you, 
by all your obligations to your God, yourselves, your children, 
and to the opinions of the world, to spurn the loathsome, the sin- 
ful condition. You have all the elements essential to the crea- 
tion of a great, prosperous, and independent empire. If you 
cannot be free, happy, and virtuous in union with us, be free, 
happy, and virtuous under a government of your own. But you 
are not reduced to such an alternative. The slave-holders have 
refused you a territorial government — form one for yourselves, 
and declare that no slave shall taint the air you breathe. Let no 
feudal lord with his hosts of serfs come among you to rob you of 



NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. 551 

your equal share of the rich deposits of your soil — tolerate no 
servile caste, kept in ignorance and degradation to minister to 
the power and wealth of an oppressive aristocracy. Be firm and 
resolute in declaring for independence, unless exempted from the 
curse of slavery, and the whole North will rally in your behalf. 
The slave-holders are losing their influence, and are divided 
among themselves, while their northern allies, withering under 
the scorn of public opinion, are daily deserting their standard. 
Be true to yourselves, and your northern friends will be true to 
you, and ere long you will be received into the Union on the 
same liberal, safe, and honorable terms on which your neighbors 
of Oregon have already been admitted. A glorious future of 
power, opulence, and happiness opens before you. Up, quit 
yourselves like men, and may the favor of God and the blessings 
of generations to come rest upon you. 

New Yokk, August, 1849. 



LETTEE 

TO HON. WILLIAM NELSON, M. C, 

ON MR. CLAY'S COMPROMISE. 



New York, February 11, 1850. 

My Dear Sir: — As one of your immediate constituents, 
permit me to express to you my views on the resolutions lately 
submitted to the Senate by Mr. Clay. They are skilfully drawn, 
and their true import seems to me to be generally misunderstood, 
and in many instances intentionally misrepresented. Various con- 
siderations combine to render these resolutions acceptable to that 
class of our northern politicians, who are anxious to be popular 
at home, without forfeiting their share of the patronage which is 
dispensed at Washington, by the slave power. The resolutions 
are eight in number, and I will examine them in their order. 

1. This proposes the admission of California as a State, with- 
out the imposition by Congress of any restriction on the subject 
of slavery, and " with suitable boundaries." These words imply 
that the present boundaries are unsuitable, and must be altered. 
Let me now call your attention to the true reason for this reserv- 
ation about boundaries, and respecting which the resolution is 

47* 



554 jay's works. 

silent. During the war, and before the cession of any territory, 
the House of Representatives passed the "Wilmot Proviso, pro- 
hibiting slavery in all the territory that might be acquired. On 
this, the South, with one voice, declared that they would not 
submit to the exclusion of slavery south of 30° 30'. The Legis- 
lature of Alabama resolved that they would not recognize 
" any enactment of the Federal Government which has for its 
object the prohibition of slavery in any territory to be acquired 
by conquest or treaty south of the line of the Missouri com- 
promise." At a public meeting in Charleston, and .at which I 
believe Mr. Calhoun was present, it was resolved that it would 
be debasing and dishonorable to submit to the prohibition of 
slavery " beyond what is already yielded by the Missouri com- 
promise ; " and innumerable have been the offers and efforts of 
southern politicians to extend the compromise line to the Pacific. 
Hence it is not the exclusion of slavery in California to the 
north of that line, that offends the South ; and to admit this anti- 
slavery State, bounded on the south by 36° 30', is doing no more 
than what the South has consented should be done, and is in no 
sense a compromise. But the free State of California extends 
south of this line, and hence her southern boundary is unsuitable, 
and hence Mr. Clay's resolution makes a tacit provision for de- 
priving the State of so much of her territory as his southern 
friends have resolved shall not be consecrated to freedom. Mr. 
Foote, of Mississippi, observed in relation to this very resolution, 
" I see no objection to admitting all California above the line of 
36° 30' into the Union, provided another new slave State be 
laid off within the present limits of Texas." To this laying off 
another new slave State, Mr. Clay's compromise opposes no ob- 
stacle ! Had Mr. Clay proposed the admission of California 
with its " present boundaries," his offer would so far have been 
a compromise, as to concede something to freedom as a consid- 
eration for the surrender of the Wilmot Proviso. 

2. The next resolution declares, that "as slavery does not 
exist by law, and is not likely to be introduced " into any of the 
conquered territories, they should be organized under territorial 



MR. CLAYS COMPROMISE. 000 

governments, without any restriction on the subject of slavery. 
The proposed assertion by Congress that slavery does not exist 
by law in the territories, is hailed as an all-sufficient balm to the 
consciences of those who recoil with horror at the idea of being 
in any degree responsible for the extension of human bondage. 
And what, let me ask, is this declaration, but the enunciation of 
a bald truism ? We all know there is no law, Mexican or 
American, recognizing slavery in the territories. Mr. Clay 
adroitly avoids drawing any inference from this acknowledged 
fact, but expects the good people of the North will draw for 
themselves the inference, that because slavery does not exist by 
law, therefore it is prohibited by law. Property in elephants 
does not exist by law, in New York, but still it exists, because 
it is not prohibited by law. Mr. Clay well knows that Mr. Cal- 
houn and the great mass of the slave-holders contend that in the 
absence of a prohibitory law, men, women and children, as well 
as horses and sheep, may be held as property in any territory in 
the United States ; and this doctrine Mr. Clay himself nowhere 
denies. Nay, further, Mr. Calhoun insists, and I believe truly, 
that slavery never has been established by law in any country — 
that after property in man has been acquired, then, and not 
before, laws are passed to protect it. The slave-holders ask for 
no act of Congress authorizing them to carry their property into 
the territories. All they ask is that no prohibitory law shall be 
passed, and then they will carry their slaves where they please, 
and keep them by their own strong hand without law, till in 
their territorial legislatures they shall pass such laws on the 
subject as they shall find needful. Not a word in Mr. Clay's 
compromise contravenes this legal theory, or prevents its reduc- 
tion to practice. Slavery did once exist by law in these terri- 
tories ; why does it not now ? Mr. Clay answers the question 
by telling us that Mexican law abolished it. Now he perfectly 
well knows that the Mexican law not only abolished hut jjrohib- 
ited slavery. If that law was repealed by the conquest, then 
the old law was revived, and slavery does now exist by law. If 
the law was not repealed by the conquest, then the law is still 
in force, and slavery is now prohibited by law. Why, then, does 



556 jay's "WORKS. 

not Mr. Clay fairly and honestly declare that slavery is now 
prohibited by law ? Because this would indeed be a compromise, 
and would render the Proviso nugatory, and would secure the 
territories from the curse of slavery. The very omission of such 
a declaration implies a denial of an existing prohibition, and in 
such denial he well knows the whole South concurs. So far? 
then, is Mr. Clay's inconsequential truism from being a com- 
promise, that it surrenders to the South even more than she has 
demanded, and throws open to the slave-holders the whole terri- 
tory north as well as south of the Missouri line. But to recon- 
cile the North to this total surrender, they are to be favored by 
Congress with the opinion that it is not likely that slavery 
will be introduced into any part of the conquered territory. 
What is only improbable, is at least possible, and hence this 
legislative opinion would, in fact, be a solemn and official decla- 
ration, that there is no legal prohibition to the introduction of 
slavery. It is not pretended that this opinion which Congress 
is to volunteer, is to have any legal force whatsoever. But 
what if time shall prove the opinion to have been erroneous ; 
will it be any consolation to the North for having by their act 
blighted regions with human bondage, that they had been fooled 
by an opinion ? 

Mr. Downs, of Louisiana, in reply to Mr. Clay, asserted that 
there were already in the territories " some four or five hun- 
dred slaves ; " and another member declared that there would 
now have been plenty of slaves there had not their masters been 
apprehensive of the Proviso. If Mr. Clay is correct in his 
opinion, the slave-holders have been strangely mistaken. It 
was openly avowed during the war, that the territory to be con- 
quered south of 36° 80' would be a slave region. Before our 
army entered the city of Mexico, we were offered all Texas 
proper, and the whole of New Mexico and California north of 
thirty-seven degrees, an extent of territory equal to nine States 
of the size of New York. The offer was rejected, and thousands 
were slaughtered to obtain territory south of 36° 30', to be peo- 
pled with slaves. From the first mention of the Proviso, our 
northern editors and politicians hi the slave interest opposed it 



MR. clay's compromise. 557 

as unnecessary, because, as they assured us, the soil and climate 
of these territories were unsuitable to slave labor. The slave- 
holders knew better, and never endorsed the falsehood of their 
allies. Mr. Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, Minister to 
Mexico, announced to his brethren, writing of California, " Sugar, 
rice and cotton find there their own congenial clime." Eecol' 
lections of Mexico, p. 234. 

Did the South make war upon Mexico only to acquire free 
territory ? Is she now threatening disunion and civil war for a 
privilege she " is not likely " to exercise ? 

Upon what does Mr. Clay rest his strange, unnatural opinion ? 
Almost exclusively on the exclusion of slavery from the Cali- 
fornia constitution. He does not pretend that this exclusion 
was owing to the unfitness of the soil and climate for slave labor. 
We all know that the unexpected discovery of gold suddenly 
collected in California a large northern •population, naturally 
averse to slavery, and jealous of the competition of slave labor 
in digging gold. But does gold exist in Deseret or New Mex- 
ico ? or is there a large northern population in California, south 
of 30° 30' ? Is it logical to infer that slavery is not likely to be 
introduced into these territories, even with the sanction of Con- 
gress, because under totally different circumstances it has been 
excluded from California? New Mexico is separated by an 
imaginary line from Texas, and about half of it is claimed by 
that slave State. Is it likely that Texan slave-holders will not 
cross the line with their property, or occupy territory they claim 
as their own ? 

The settlers in Deseret have formed a constitution virtually 
allowing slavery, by not prohibiting it. The gold diggers in 
California are concentrated far north of 3G° 30' ; the city of San 
Francisco is also north of that line, while south of it is a large 
area, where there is little to obstruct the introduction of slavery. 
Under these circumstances, there are probably very few men in 
Congress who would dare on their oaths, to affirm the opinion 
expressed by Mr. Clay. That opinion is at best a calculation of 
chances ; a calculation on which no man would hazard a thousand 
dollars ; yet this miserable calculation is offered to the North as 



558 jay's works. 

a compensation for the surrender of all the political and moral 
blessings which the Proviso would secure. 

Mr. Clay utterly demolishes Gen. Cass's argument against 
the constitutionality of the Proviso, and affirms most positively 
the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories. But 
how stands the question of duty and moral consistency between 
these two gentlemen ? Undeniably in favor of the General. 
He has not, indeed, undertaken to solve the nice and difficult 
question, whether human bondage is a curse or a blessing. He 
is sensibly alive to the atrocity of flogging two or three Hunga- 
rian women, but makes no comment on laws which subject thou- 
sands and tens of thousands of American women to the lash. 
He calls upon the nation to express its indignation at the exe- 
cution of a few Hungarian insurgents taken with arms in their 
hands, but gives no opinion how far it would be right or wrong 
to shoot certain of his own countrymen, if taken in revolt against 
worse than Austrian oppression. But he contends that what- 
ever may be the moral character of slavery, Congress has no 
constitutional right to prohibit it, and therefore ought not to pro- 
hibit it. On the other hand, Mr. Clay frankly declares that 
slavery is wrong, " a grievous wrong," that to propagate slavery 
is to propagate wrong. He affirms the constitutional power of 
Congress to prohibit this propagation of wrong, and then calls 
upon Congress to permit slave-holders to propagate this wrong 
when and where they please over the whole wide extent of our 
conquered territory, with the single exception of what may be 
included within the State of California. Before God and man, 
Gen. Cass's conclusion from his premises is justified, while the 
conclusion drawn by Mr. Clay from his premises is condemned 
as hostile to morality and humanity. 

3. This resolution merely gives to Texas more territory than 
she is entitled to, and less than she demands, and is so far a com- 
promise of territorial claims ; but in no degree a compromise 
between the friends and enemies of human rights, since what is 
to be taken from Texas is to be immediately thrown open to 
the slave-holders. 



MR. clay's compromise. 559 

4. Texas had, before annexation, pledged her duties on for- 
eign commerce as security to certain creditors. These duties, 
by annexation were surrendered to the United States. Mr. 
Clay proposes that the United States shall assume the debts due 
to these creditors if Texas will relinquish her claims on New 
Mexico. If justice requires the nation to assume these debts, 
their assumption ought not to depend on the cession of territory 
by Texas. If in justice we do not owe these debts, their pay- 
ment by us will in fact be a gratuity to Texas for the relin- 
quishment of one of the most impudent and fraudulent claims 
ever made. "We have official information, communicated by 
General Jackson to Congress, that the Texans, when defining 
the boundaries of their new-born republic, at first determined to 
include California ; and beyond all question they had then as 
much right to San Francisco as they now have to Santa Fe. 
The proposition of Mr. Clay is therefore to pay Texas for 
territory to which he admits she has no title, and then to throw 
open the territory so purchased to the slave-holders. In this, I 
can see no concession to the North. 

5. Congress is to declare it inexpedient to abolish slavery in 
the District of Columbia, except with the assent of Maryland 
and the people of the District, and making compensation to the 
slave-holders. The unlimited power of Congress to abolish 
slavery in the district is fully conceded, yet he calls on Congress 
not to do, what many of its members and vast multitudes of 
their constituents believe it their moral duty to do. In this 
proposal I can find no other compromise but that of conscience. 

G. The next proposal is to prohibit the importation of slaves 
into the District for sale. In other words, the inhabitants are 
to have a monopoly of the trade in human beings. These good 
people are not to be deprived of the privilege of importing as 
many slaves as they may want for their own use, nor of selling 
husbands, and wives, and children, to be transported to the ex- 
tremities of the Union ; but foreign traders shall no longer be 
permitted to glut the Washington market with their wares. The 
moment the resolution passes, human chattels will rise in value 



560 jay's works. 

in the capital of our Republic. I object not to the abolition of 
the trade, since it will remove one of the many abominations 
with which slavery has disgraced the seat of our national gov- 
ernment ; but I deny that the proposition involves the slightest 
concession on the part of the slave-holders. Says Mr. Clay 
himself, "Almost every slave-holding State in the Union has ex- 
ercised its power to prohibit the introduction of slaves as mer- 
chandise." The power is exercised or not, according to conve- 
nience, and as it is thought most profitable to breed or to import 
slaves. 

7. We now come to a grand specific for giving ease to north- 
ern consciences, for allaying all irritation, and for restoring a 
general healthful action throughout the present morbid system 
of the confederacy ! I will give the recipe in full : "Resolved, 
That more effectual provision ought to be made by law for the 
restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or labor in 
any State, who may escape into any other State or territory of 
this Union." That I may not be accused of injustice to Mr. 
Clay in my subsequent remarks, I will quote from his speech on 
this point : " I do not say, sir, that a private individual is obliged 
to make the tour of his whole State, in order to assist the owner 
of a slave to recover his property ; but I do say, if he is present 
when the owner of a slave is about to assert his rights and regain 
possession of his property, that he and every one present, whether 
officer or agent of the State government, or private individual, 
is bound to assist in the execution of the laws of their country." 
" I will go with the farthest senator from the South in this body 
to make penal laws to impose the heaviest sanctions upon the 
recovery of fugitive slaves, and the restoration of them to their 
owners." 

Such is the panacea, and such is the manner in which our 
medical adviser proposes to administer it. lie must not be 
surprised should some difficulty be experienced in compelling 
the patient to swallow the draught. 

Mr. Clay has long been a favorer of those field sports in 
which the prey is man, and he has the merit, it is believed, of 



MR. clay's compromise. 561 

being the first to conceive the grand idea of securing a national 
intercommunity in these sports, by means of international treaties. 
So early as the 19th June, 1826, as Secretary of State, he pro- 
posed to the British government to throw the Canadas open for 
this sport, and in return, to British sportsmen should be accorded 
the privilege of hunting "West India negroes throughout the 
whole extent of the American Republic. But John Bull rejected 
the tendered reciprocity, and churlishly replied, " The law of 
Parliament gave freedom to every slave who effected his landing 
on British ground." 

About the same time we requested from Mexico the boon of 
hunting negroes over her wide area. The desired favor was de- 
nied, but we have since forcibly added almost half her territory 
to our own hunting grounds. Of all the game laws in existence, 
that of 1793, which regulates the chase of negroes, is the most 
horrible ; yet Mr. Clay is dissatisfied with it, and calls upon 
Congress to make it "more effectual," and of course more hor- 
rible. Should a Virginian come to New York in search of his 
horse, and find him in possession of another, who claims him as 
his property, how is he to recover the animal ? Only by process 
of law, and that process requires that a jury of twelve impar- 
tial men, drawn by lot, shall pass upon the conflicting claims. 
Neither party has any choice in selecting the jury, nor can 
either establish his claim by his own evidence. But if the Vir- 
ginian is hunting a man, and sees one that will serve his pur- 
pose, and who will fetch a thousand dollars in the southern mar- 
ket, but who claims to belong to himself, how is he to secure 
him ? "Why, he may catch his man as well as he can, and with- 
out warrant may carry him before any justice of the peace whom 
for sufficient reasons he may think proper to select, and swear 
that the man he has caught is his, and the justice may surrender 
the man to perpetual bondage, degradation, and misery. Vari- 
ous officers besides justices are authorized to act, so that the 
Virginian has a wide choice. Surely this is hunting made easy 
by law ; but it is not found so easy in practice. Latterly, vari- 
• ous States have prohibited their own officers from assisting in 
i the chase of human beings, and citizens rarely lend any unpaid 

48 



562 jay's works. 

assistance. Herrce a new game law is deemed needful, and Mr. 
Clay, as we have seen, is pledged to go with "the farthest 
southern sena'tor," the most devoted lover of the sport, to make 
it effectual. The Judiciary Committee have accordingly reported 
a bill now before the Senate. " I agree," said Mr. Mason, one 
of the farthest southern senators, in his speech on this bill (28th 
January,) " I agree that the Federal Government has no power 
to impose duties of any kind upon officers of State governments as 
such" Of course, the obligation imposed by the law of 1793, 
upon justices of the peace and other State officers, to catch 
slaves, are void, and our northern Legislatures, it is admitted, 
have a right to prohibit them from participating in slave hunts. 
To obviate this difficulty, it becomes necessary to select other 
than State officers to adjudicate upon questions of higher import 
than any, with the single exception of life and death, that ever 
exercise the talents, learning, virtue, and independence of the 
most august tribunals of any civilized country. And who are 
the grave and reverend judges appointed by this bill to sit in 
judgment on the liberty or bondage of native-born Americans? 
Among these judges are twenty thousand postmasters ! 
Each one of these new judges is authorized to adjudge any man, 
woman, or child, black or white, to be a vendible chattel ; and 
this judgment is to be founded on any proof that may be satis- 
factory to said postmaster, in the words of the bill " either by 
oral testimony or by affidavit," nor is the testimony either oral 
or by affidavit of the interested claimant excluded ; and from 
this judgment there is no appeal ! Slavery is no longer confined 
to one color. The southern papers abound with advertisements 
offering rewards for fugitive slaves, containing the caution, that 
the fugitive will probably attempt to pass for a tvhite person. 
A few years since a Maryland slave-holder caught in Philadel- 
phia a white girl (Mary Gilm ore), whom he claimed as his 
slave. The case was brought before a Pennsylvania judge, and 
occupied two days, and it was proved by most abundant, over- 
whelming evidence, that the alleged slave was the orphan daugh- 
ter of took Irish parents. The mother had died in the 
Philadelphia hospital, and the daughter had never been in Mary- 



mr. clay's compromise. 563 

land. By a pending amendment to this bill, every man and 
woman who, prompted by the holiest impulses of our nature, 
shall "harbor or conceal" the prey from the hunter, is to be 
visited with fine and imprisonment. A few days after Mr. Clay 
introduced his resolutions, Bruin and Hill, slave-traders in Alex- 
andria, wrote a letter, since published in the newspapers, stating 
for the information of a free mother in New York who wished 
to redeem her daughter from bondage, that they cannot afford 
to sell " the girl Emily for less than eighteen hundred dol- 
lars." Why this prodigious price ? They add, " We have two 
or three offers for Emily from gentlemen from the South. She 
Is said to be the finest looking woman in this country." 

Should this devoted victim escape from her keepers, and be 
afterwards found concealed in her mother's house, not only is 
she to be carried back and subjected to the fate intended for her, 
but the mother is liable by the present bill to be sentenced to 
pay a fine of five hundred dollars to the United States, to pay 
Messrs. Bruin and Hill one thousand dollars for damages, and 
be imprisoned six months. We hope, for Mr. Clay's reputation, 
no "farthest senator from the south" will ask for heavier pen- 
alties, for if he does, Mr. Clay is pledged to vote for "the 
heaviest sanctions " that may be proposed. But suppose this 
poor girl should find her way to Peekskill, instead of New 
York, and in your absence, with bursting heart, ask to be skel- 
tered in your house from her pursuers. Can you for a single 
moment admit the possibility, that your wife, the mother of your 
children, could, through fear of the law, so unsex herself, as to 
turn the trembling fugitive into the street, to be caught by the 
hunters ? A thousand times rather would you see the partner 
of your bosom enduring Mr. Clay's " heaviest sanctions," than 
bringing ignominy upon herself, and covering her husband and 
children with shame and confusion of face, by committing a 
crime so foul and damnable. Mr. Mason, in his speech, insisls 
upon the right of the hunter, " to enter peaceably any inclosure or 
dwelling where such slave may be found, for the purpose of 
taking him." Should this asserted right be incorporated into 
the compromise bill, then may southern ruffians and northern 



564 jay's works. 

doughfaces ere long be roaming through our bed-rooms and 
ransacking our closets in search of prey. Should an attempt 
be made to enforce " the heaviest sanctions " for which Mr. 
Clay is ready to vote, he may be assured the prisons in New 
York and New England are too few to hold the vast multi- 
tudes of men and women who would willingly tenant them, 
rather than peril their souls by betraying the fugitive or assist- 
ing in his capture. Mr. Clay very kindly declines requiring 
" a private individual to make the tour of his whole State " in 
search of a slave, but he insists that all who are present when 
the game is started, ought to follow the hounds. Could he 
but enforce this obligation, Ave should have some grand turnouts 
in New York and New England, some like the one fancied 
by the poet : 

" Gay luck to our hunters ! how nobly they ride, 
In the glow of their zeal and the strength of their pride ! — 
The priest with his cassock flung back on the wind, 
Just screening the politic statesman behind — 
The saint and the sinner, with cursing and prayer — 
The drunk and the sober ride merrily there. 
Oh ! goodly and grand is our hunting to see, 
In this 'land of the brave and this home of the free ! ' 
Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin 
Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin ! 
So speed to their hunting o'er mountain and glen, 
Through canebreak and forest — the hunting of men! " 

But the Constitution ! This instrument declares in substance^ 
that the fugitive slave shall be delivered up ; but Mr. Clay, I 
believe, is the first lawyer who has contended that the obligation 
of delivery rests upon " private individuals." Even Mr. Mason, 
in his speech, insists that the mandate to deliver up is " addressed 
to the jurisdiction of the State into which the fugitive may 
escape." Of course, individual citizens, as such, are under no 
constitutional obligation to volunteer to catch slaves. But sup- 
pose a positive law should enjoin each individual to betray or 
aid in capturing the fugitive — the question put by the apostles, 
when legally forbidden to teach in the name of Jesus, would 
then recur : " Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken 



MR. clay's compromise. 565 

unto you more than unto God, judge ye." It is not merely the 
right, but the duty of a Christian to refuse an active obedience 
to any and every law of man, which he believes contravenes 
the commands of his Maker ; and then, like the apostles, to 
offer no forcible resistance to the penalties attached to his dis- 
obedience. 

Mr. Clay may be assured, that the bill of pains and penalties 
promised in his seventh resolution, will not have the composing 
influence he anticipates. Filling our prisons with pious, 
benevolent, kind-hearted men and woman, will have little effect 
in suppressing agitation. In his compromising anodyne, Mr. 
Clay has omitted an important iugredient. Ample provision is 
to be made for the recovery of southern slaves, but none for the 
recovery of northern citizens. If the Constitution gives the 
southern planter a right to seize his slave in New York or 
Massachusetts, equally explicit is the grant to citizens of those 
States to enjoy all the rights of citizenship in South Carolina. 
Yet, if certain of our citizens, freeholders and electors at home, 
think proper to visit that State, a prison is the only dwelling 
they are permitted to occupy ; and should the State to which 
they belong send an agent to inquire why they are immured in 
a jail, and to bring their case before the Supreme Court of the 
United States, he is compelled to flee at the hazard of his life ! 

8. The last item of this grand compromise is virtually a guar- 
anty that the American slave-trade, vile and loathsome as it is, 
shall be held sacred from prohibition or obstruction by the Fed- 
eral Government for all time to come. The stars and stripes shall 
forever protect each coasting vessel that shall be freighted with 
human misery and despair, and manacled coffles shall, without 
molestation, be driven across the continent from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. The slave-trade in the District, that is, in one single 
market, Mr. Clay pronounces "detestable," and talks with 
horror of " the corteges which pass along our avenues of manacled 
human beings." But why this sudden outburst of indignation 
against a lawful commerce ? Is it dishonorable to sell merchan- 
dise ? Has not Mr. Clay himself proclaimed, " that is property 
48* 



566 jay's works. 

which the law makes property ? " "Why does he dishonor the 
"Washington man-merchants ? Is it base to buy and sell human 
beings ? Mr. Clay forgets that this " detestable trade " is, in 
fact, supported by the gentlemen breeders who sell, and the 
gentlemen planters who buy. But this trade which is so 
" detestable," and these corteges which are so horrible on a very 
little scale, are now to assume a national importance, protected 
and sanctioned by the government of the whole Republic ! 

Such, sir, is the magnanimous compromise which so many of 
our Whig and Democratic politicians, now that the elections are 
over, and the solemn pledges made in favor of the Wilmot 
Proviso supposed to be forgotten, are willing to accept as a 
mighty boon to human rights, and a mighty barrier against the 
further encroachments of the slave power. In my ears the only 
language addressed by these eight resolutions, to the North, is 
the cry of the horseleech — Give, give. No test can detect in 
them, no microscope can make visible the most minute conces- 
sion to human liberty. Not one single inch of territory does the 
proposed compromise secure from slavery that is not already 
rescued from its power. Not one single human being will it 
save from bondage. 

The extension of the Missouri line to the Pacific would at 
least have rendered all on the north of it free soil ; but, says 
Mr. Clay, most truly, although with a frankness almost insult- 
ing to the North, " I say, sir, in my place here, that it is much 
better for the South that the whole subject should be open on 
both sides an imaginary line of 36° 30', than that slavery should 
be interdicted positively north of 36° 30' with freedom to admit 
or exclude it soidh of3Q° 30', at the will of the people/" 

But, Mr. Clay exclaimed, " No earthly power could induce 
me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery south or north 
of that line," and at this heroic avowal the galleries applauded. 
But the galleries are not deeply versed in southern tactics. 
Mi". Clay need apprehend no coercion to extort his reluctant 
vote for a purpose no one desires or demands. The South have, 
with one voice, denied the power of Congress either to prohibit 
or establish slavery in the territories. Said Mr. King, of 



MR. clay's compromise. 567 

Alabama, in reply, " We ask no act of Congress to carry slavery 
anywhere. I believe we (Congress) have just as much right to 
prohibit slavery in the territories as to carry it there. "We have 
no right to do one or the other." Other southern senators 
avowed their concurrence in the doctrine advanced by Mr. 
King. Hence Mr Clay's defiance of any power on earth to 
make him do what nobody wants him to do, was, at least, a 
rhetorical flourish. 

But if this pretended compromise is, as I contend, a full and 
unqualified surrender of all the demands of the North, why did 
certain ultra senators object to it ? A show of resistance might 
have been deemed politic, as tending to make northern men 
suppose there must be something granted to them, although 
they could not tell what. It may also suit the party purposes 
of some to prolong the present agitation, that they may manu- 
facture more patriotism for the southern market ; and, lastly, if 
any really wish to form a separate republic, in which they 
expect to have more power than they now enjoy, they will of 
course reject all concessions, however great. But it is incredi- 
ble that the mere slave-holders, the men who are only anxious 
to open new markets for the sale of their stock, and to acquire 
more votes in Congress, should be averse to a proposition that 
offers them all they have ever asked, and all that Congress can 
give them, with the exception of the suppression of the right of 
petition, and the censorship of the post-office, and these are 
not now in issue. 

But we are told that unless we yield to the demands of the 
slave-holders, they will dissolve the Union. And what are 
these demands, which Mr. Clay admits we have full right to 
refuse ? Why, that a small body of men, not probably exceed- 
ing 100,000,* shall be at liberty, for their own aggrandizement, 
to blight with the curse of slavery our vast possessions south of 
36° 30', and whatever portion of Mexico it shall hereafter be 
found convenient to seize. Thus, at a time when cruelty and 

* A late census in Kentucky reveals the fact, that the slave-holders in 
that State own on an average twenty-two slaves. Should this average be 
applied to the whole slave region, the number of masters, according to the 
census of 1840, cannot exceed 117,000 ! 



568 jay's works. 

oppression are elsewhere giving way before the increasing 
intelligence and morality of the age, we, the Model Republic, 
are to be the instrument of extending over illimitable regions 
now free, a despotism more accursed than any other known 
throughout the civilized Avorld, — a despotism that not only 
enslaves the body, but crushes the intellect through which man 
is enabled to distinguish good from evil, — a despotism that 
annihilates all rights, sets at naught all the affections of the 
heart, and converts a being made in the image of God into 
a soulless machine. Tell me not of exceptions, — of some lucky 
chattel, like Mr. Clay's negro, referred to in his speech, who in 
his master's well-stored kitchen hugs his chain, laughs, and 
grows fat. He is but a vendible commodity, and to-morrow's 
sun may behold him toiling under the lash, his wife given to 
another, and his children with pigs and mules sold at auction to 
the highest bidder. Tell me not of exceptions, — " the kind 
owner " may at any moment be exchanged by death or debts, 
for the hardened, remorseless taskmaster, and the law sanctions 
every atrocity perpetrated upon the slave.* No, my dear sir, I 
cannot give my consent, and I hope it will not be given for me 
by my i*epresentative, to curse a vast empire with such an in- 
stitution, and to doom unborn millions to its unutterable 
abominations, even to save our southern brethren from the sin 
and folly of founding a new Republic (!) upon the denial of 
human rights, and of rendering themselves a byword, a proverb, 
and a reproach among all the nations of the earth. I value the 
favor of my God and the salvation of my soul too much to take 

*Our doughfaces are always complaining that their employers are slan- 
dered at the North. Let the employers speak for themselves. In Dev. 
Reports, (North Carolina,) p. 263, 1829, we find the case of The State vs. 
Mann. The defendant attempted to flog a woman slave whom he had hired ; 
she retreated ; he ordered her to come to him, but she continuing to re- 
treat, he seized his gun, fired at and wounded her. For this he was in- 
dicted. The Court held that he who hires a slave is, for the time being, 
invested with all the powers of the owner himself to enforce obedience, and 
that the indictment could not be sustained. Said Judge Ruffin, " The power 
of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect. 
I most sincerely confess my sense of the harshness of this proposition. I 
feel it as deeply as any man can ; and as a principle of moral right, every man 
in his retirement must repudiate it. But in the actual state of things it must 
be so — there is no remedy. This discipline belongs to slavery." 
Verily, we are the people to lecture Austria ! 



MR. clay's compromise. 569 

part or lot in such great wickedness. Most fully do I agree 
with Mr. Clay, that Congress has no more constitutional au- 
thority over slavery in the States, than in the Island of Cuha ; 
and most fully do I agree with the admission in his speech, but 
not to be found in his resolutions, of the right of Congress to 
exclude slavery from the conquered territories. Hence, in my 
opinion, the refusal to exercise this right, even to preserve the 
Union, would be a crime in the sight of God and man. I en- 
tertain no apprehension of the severance of the Union for this 
cause, but should the few slave-holders and the vast multitude of 
southern people who have no interest in slavery, in their mad- 
ness separate from us, upon them will rest the sin, and upon 
them and their children will fall its punishment. Let us do 
what God commands, and leave to Him the consequences. 

Yours truly, 

"William Jay. 



A LETTER 

TO THE HON. SAMUEL A. ELIOT, REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE CITY OF BOSTON, IN REPLY 

TO HIS APOLOGY FOR VOTING FOR THE 

FUGITIVE SLAVE BILL. 



1851 



Sir : — 

An English • courtier procured a colonial judgeship, for a 
young dependant wholly ignorant of law. The new functionary, 
on parting with his patron, received from him the following sage 
advice, — " Be careful never to assign reasons, for whether your 
judgments be right or wrong, your reasons will certainly be 
bad." You have cause to regret that some friend had not been 
equally provident of your reputation, and intimated that it was 
only expected of you to vote for Mr. Webster's measures, but 
by no means to assist him in vindicating them. You did, indeed, 
vote precisely as those who procured your nomination intended 
you should ; yet, on your return home, you found your name 
had become a byword and a reproach in your native State. 
Another election approached, but you declined submitting your 
recent course to the judgment of the electors, and withdrew 
from the canvass. But although the people were thus prevented 
from voting against you, they persisted in speaking and writing 
against you. Anxious to relieve yourself from the load of 
obloquy by which you were oppressed, in an evil hour you rashly 



572 jay's works. 

appealed to the public through, the columns of a newspaper, and 
gave the " reasons " of your vote for the Fugitive Slave Law. 
You had a high and recent example of the kind of logic suited 
to your case. You might have indulged in transcendental non- 
sense, and talked about the climate, soil, and scenery of New 
England and the wonders of physical geography, and, assuming 
that negroes were created free, you might have contended that, 
in voting for a law to catch and enslave them, you had avoided 
the folly of reenacting the law of God. Reasons of this sort, 
you and others had declared, " had convinced the understanding 
and touched the conscience of the nation." Instead of following 
an example so illustrious and successful, you assign " reasons " 
so very commonplace, that the most ordinary capacity can 
understand them, and so feeble, that the slightest strength can 
overthrow them. 

Your first " reason " is, that the delivery of fugitives is a 
constitutional obligation. By this you mean, that, by virtue of 
the construction of a certain clause in the Constitution by the 
Supreme Court, Congress has the power to pass a law for the 
recovery of fugitive slaves. Well, sir, does this constitutional 
obligation authorize Congress to pass any law whatsoever on the 
subject, however atrocious and wicked ? Had you voted for a 
law to prevent smuggling, in which you had authorized every 
tide-waiter to shoot any person suspected of having contraband 
goods in his possession, would it have been a good " reason " for 
such an atrocity, that the collection of duties was " a constitu- 
tional obligation ? " You are condemned for voting for an 
arbitrary, detestable, diabolical law, — one that tramples upon 
the rights of conscience, outrages the feelings of humanity, dis- 
cards the rules of evidence, levels all the barriers erected by 
the common law for the protection of personal liberty, and, in 
defiance of the Constitution, and against its express provisions, 
gives to the courts the appointment of legions of slave-catching 
judges. And your " reason " for all this is, that the delivery of 
fugitives is " a constitutional obligation ! " The " obligation " is 
not in issue. Please to understand, sir, that it is not denied. It 
is for the manner in which you profess to have discharged the 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 573 

obligation, that you are censured ; and be it remembered, that 
not one of the obnoxious provisions of your law is required by 
the Constitution. You go on and attempt to enlighten your 
constituents as to the history of this constitutional obligation. 
As the obligation affords you no apology for the iniquitous 
features of your law, its history is, of course, mere surplusage, 
and serves no other purpose than to divert the attention of your 
readers from yourself. About two thirds of your apology is 
occupied with a historical disquisition, which has as much to do 
with your vindication as the question respecting the existence of 
a lunar atmosphere. I will not, however, withhold from you 
whatever benefit you may derive from either your logic or your 
history, but will give each a fair and honest examination. You 
inform the public that, at the time the Constitution was formed, 

" Slavery had been abolished in some of the States, and still existed 
in others. Here seemed an insurmountable incompatibility of inter- 
ests, and nothing perplexed the wise men of that day — and they were 
very wise men — so much as this topic. At last they agreed that the 
new Constitution should have nothing to do with it ; that the word 
slavery should not be mentioned in it, and that it should be left to the 
States themselves to establish, retain, or abolish it, just as much after 
the adoption of the Constitution as before. But in order to secure the 
existence of the institution to those States who preferred it, it was 
agreed that the persons escaping from labor to which they were bound, 
in one commonwealth, and found in another, should be returned to 
the State from which they had fled. The provision was necessary for 
the preservation of this interest in statu quo. It did not extend slavery. 
It kept it where it already was, and where it could not have continued 
if every slave who escaped North was at once free and irreclaimable. 
The members of the confederacy from the South saw this distinctly, 
and deliberately declared that they could not and would not enter a 
union with States who would tempt away their slaves with the pros- 
pect of immediate and permanent freedom The Con- 
stitution was adopted with this provision, and it could not have been 
adopted without it." 

Thus we learn from you, sir, that when the Constitution was 
formed, " slavery had been abolished in some of the States." It 
is a pity you did not vouchsafe to tell us which of the States 
[had thus early and honorably distinguished themselves. Of the 
thirteen American States in 1787, how many, sir, had by law 
.abolished slavery? Not one. Your " some States ' consisted 
49 



574 jay's works. 

of Massachusetts alone. And how was slavery abolished 
there ? Not by any express prohibition in her constitution, nor 
by any act of her Legislature. Fortunately, her constitution, 
like that of most other States, contained a general declaration 
of human rights, somewhat similar to the " rhetorical abstraction " 
in the Declaration of Independence. Two or three years before 
the Federal Convention assembled, a young lawyer, perceiving 
that the declaration in the constitution had inadvertently made 
no exclusion of the rights of men with dark complexions, brought 
an action for a slave against his master for work done and per- 
formed. An upright and independent court, not having the fear 
of our southern brethren before their eyes, decided that the 
slave was a man, and therefore entitled to the rights which the 
constitution declared belonged to all men, and gave judgment 
for the plaintiff. In this way, sir, was slavery abolished in 
Massachusetts, and hence the delegates from Massachusetts in 
the convention were the only ones who represented a free State. 
And now, sir, what becomes of your " insurmountable incompati- 
bility of interests " arising from the fact that " slavery had been 
abolished in some States and still existed in others," which you 
tell us so much perplexed the wise men of that day ? We shall 
see, sir, that on questions touching human bondage the Massa- 
chusetts delegation seem to have been slave-holders in heart, 
and did not partake of the perplexity which troubled the wise 
men. With the exception of that delegation, there were not 
probably half a dozen members of the convention who were not 
slave-holders. 

It would seem from your historical review, that the clause in 
the Constitution respecting fugitive slaves was the grand com- 
promise between the North and the South, without which " the 
Constitution could not have been adopted ; " and that to this 
clause we owe our glorious slave-catching Union. You fortify 
this wonderful historical discovery by appealing to the " delib- 
erate declarations " of southern members, that they " would not. 
enter a union with States who would tempt away their slaves," 
&c. It is to be regretted that you have not deemed it expedient 
to refer to the records of these declarations, as other students of 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 575 

our constitutional history are wholly ignorant of them. Suffer 
me, sir, to enter into a few historical details, for the purpose of 
vindicating the liberty I take to differ with you as to the accu- 
racy of your statements. 

The Convention met in Philadelphia, May, 25, 1787. On 
the 29th of the same month, Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, sub- 
mitted a plan of government. It contained no allusion to 
fugitive slaves. On the same day, Mr. Charles Pinckney, of 
South Carolina, submitted another plan. This last provided 
for the surrender of fugitive criminals, but was silent about 
fugitives slaves. On the 15th of June, Mr. Patterson, of New 
Jersey, submitted a third plan. This also provided for the 
surrender of fugitives from justice, but not from bondage. On 
the 18th, Mr. Hamilton announced his plan, but the fugitive 
slave found no place in it. On the 2Gth of June, the Conven- 
tion, having agreed on the general features of the proposed 
Constitution in the form of resolutions, referred them to " a 
committee of detail," for the purpose of reducing them to the 
form of a Constitution. In this resolutions, there was not the 
most distant allusion to fugitive slaves. On the Gth of August, 
the committee reported the draft of a Constitution, and yet, 
strange as you may deem it, the provision without which, you 
tell us, the Constitution could not have been adopted, was not in 
it, although there was in it a provision for the surrender of 
fugitive criminals. For three months had the Convention been 
in session, and not one syllable had been uttered about fugitive 
slaves. At last, on the 29th of August, as we learn from the 
minutes, 

" It was moved and seconded to agree to the following proposition, 
to be inserted after the 15th article : ' If any person, bound to service 
or labor in any of the United States, shall escape into another State, 
he or she shall not be discharged from such service or labor in con- 
sequence of any regulation subsisting in the State to which they 
escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their 
service or labor,' which passed unanimously." 

Really, sir, I find in this record but little evidence of the 
perplexity which distressed our wise men, or of the great com- 
promise between the North and South, on which you dwell. 



576 jay's works. 

The loth article, referred to above, was the article providing 
for the surrender of fugitives from justice, and this suggested 
the idea, that it would be well to provide, also, for the surrender 
of fugitive slaves. In an assembly consisting almost exclusively 
of slave-holders, the idea was exceedingly relished ; and with- 
out a word of opposition, the suggestion was unanimously 
adopted. From Mr. Madison's report we learn that, the day 
before, Messrs. Butler and Pinckney had informally proposed 
that fugitive slaves and servants should be delivered up " like 
criminals." 

Mr. Wilson of Perm. : — " Tliis would oblige the Executive of the State 
to do it at the public expense. Mr. Sherman, of Conn., saw no more 
propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or servant 
than a horse." Madison Papers, p. 1447. 

The subject was here dropped. The next day the motion was 
made in form, and as Mr. Madison says, " agreed to, nem. con" 
From the phraseology of the motion, and the objections of 
Messrs. "Wilson and Sherman, it was perfectly understood that 
the obligation of delivery was imposed on the States, and that 
no power was intended to be conferred on Congress to legislate 
on the subject. Messrs. Wilson and Sherman's objections 
arose from no moral repugnance to slave-catching, but from the 
inconvenience they apprehended the State authorities would be 
subjected to ; and Mr. Wilson perhaps spoke from experience, 
as his own State had at that very time a law for catching and 
returning fugitive slaves from other States. The idea, therefore, 
that this agreement was a compromise between the North and 
South is wholly imaginary, and you, sir, must have mistaken 
some recent fulminations from the southern chivalry for the 
'deliberate declarations" which you suppose were made in the 
Convention. Believe me, sir, no members of the Convention 
ever declared they would not enter into the Union, unless it was 
agreed to surrender fugitive slaves, for the obvious reason, that 
the northern slave-holders required no threats from their 
southern brethren to consent to a compact convenient to both. 
It is very true, sir, that there were compromises, and that there 
were " deliberate declarations," but they had no reference to the 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 577 

surrender of runaway slaves. I have pointed out your historical 
mistake, not because it has the remotest bearing on your justifica- 
tion, but because you seem to think that it has. 

The first great compromise was between, not the North and 
the South, but the small and the large States. The one claimed, 
and the other refused, an equality of suffrage in the national 
legislature. It was at last agreed, that the suffrage should be 
equal in one house, and according to population in the other. 
This was the first compromise. Then came the question, What 
should constitute the representative population ? The Southern. 
States had more slaves than the Northern, and the former 
insisted that slaves should be included in the representative 
population. This would have given the Southei'n States an 
unfair preponderance in Congress. Moreover, a portion of the 
Southern States were engaged in the African slave-trade, and, 
of course, every slave landed on their shores would increase 
their political power in Congress. To reconcile the North to 
slave representation, it was offered that direct taxation should 
be proportioned to representation. But the North was reluctant, 
and, as usual, was bullied into a compromise. Mr. Davie, of 
North Carolina, made a " deliberate declaration : " 

" He was sure that North Carolina would never confederate on any 
terms that did not rate them (the slaves) at least as three-fifths. If 
the Eastern States meant, therefore, to exclude them (the slaves) 
altogether, the business was at an end." Madison Papers, p. 1081. 

This threat, and others like it, settled the matter. The com- 
promise, of three-fifths of the slaves to be included in the repre- 
sentative population, was accepted on the motion of a New 
England member ; and the consequence is, that the slave States 
have now twenty-one members in the lower house of Congress 
more than they are entitled to by their free population. This 
was the second compromise. There was still a third, far more 
wicked and detestable, and effected by the " deliberate declara- 
tions" of southern members. The "committee of detail" has 
been already mentioned. It consisted of Messrs. Rutledge of 
South Carolina, Randolph of Virginia, Wilson of Pennsylvania, 
Ellsworth of Connecticut, and Gorham of Massachusetts. This 
49* 



578 jay's works. 

committee, it will be recollected, were to reduce to the form of a 
Constitution the resolutions agreed on by. the Convention. 
Neither in the resolutions themselves, nor in the discussions 
which preceded their adoption, had any reference been made to 
a guaranty for the continuance of the African slave-trade. 
Nevertheless, this committee, of their own will and pleasure, 
inserted in their draft the following clause : 

" No tax or duty shall be laid by the legislature on articles exported 
from any State, nor on the migration or importation of such persons as 
the several Slates shall think proper to admit, nor shall such migration 
or importation be prohibited." 

To understand the cunning wickedness of this clause, it must 
be recollected that Congress was to have power to regulate for- 
eign commerce, and commerce between the States ; and hence 
it might, at a future time, suppress both the foreign and domestic 
commerce in human flesh, or it might burden this commerce 
with duties. Hence this artfully expressed perpetual restriction 
on the power of Congress to interfere with the traffic in human 
beings. As this grand scheme was concocted in the committee, 
and not in the Convention, it may be interesting to inquire into 
its paternity. 

In the debates which ensued on this clause, Mr. Ellsworth, 
one of the committee who reported it, 

"Was for leaving the clause as it now stands. Let every State import 
what it pleases. The morality, the wisdom of slavery, are considerations 
belonging to the States themselves. What enriches a part enriches 
the whole, and the States are the best judges of their particular inter- 
ests. The old Confederation had not meddled with this point, and he 
did not see any greater necessity for bringing it within the policy of 
the new one." " As slaves multiply so fast in Virginia and Maryland 
that it is cheaper to raise than to import them, whilst in the sickly 
rice-swamps foreign supplies are necessary, if we go farther than is 
urged [a proposal to permit the trade for a limited time,] we shall 
be unjust towards South Carolina and Georgia. Let us not inter- 
meddle." Madison Papers, pp. 1389, 1391. 

This gentleman was one of your " very wise men ; " and his 
mantle has recently fallen upon other wise men from the East. 
Mr. Wilson, another member of the committee, objected. " All 
articles imported," said he, " are to be taxed ; slaves alone are 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 579 

exempt. This is, in fact, a bounty on that article." The clause 
was referred to another committee, who modified it by limiting 
the restriction to 1800. It was moved to guarantee the slave- 
trade for twenty years, by postponing the restriction to 1808. 
This motion was seconded by Mr. Gorham, another member of 
the committee. Mr. Randolph, also of the committee, was 
against the slave-trade, and opposed to any restriction on the 
power of Congress to suppress it. Two of the committee, then, 
we find, were against the trade, and three, Messrs. Rutledge, 
Ellsworth, and Gorham, for perpetuating it. And now, sir, 
what were the inducements which prevailed on the two wise 
men from the East to yield their consent to a proposition so 
wicked and abominable ? We are, of course, not informed what 
passed in the committee, but we can well imagine, from the 
language used by the chairman and others in the Convention. 
Said Mr. Rutledge, 

"If the Convention thinks North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
Georgia will ever agree to this plan (the Federal Constitution) unless 
their right to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is vain. 
The people of those States will never be such fools as to give up so 
important an interest." 

In other words, " Gentlemen of the North, no Union without 
the African slave-trade." Said Mr. Charles Pinckney : 

" South Carolina can never receive the plan (of the Constitution) 
if it prohibits the slave-trade. In every proposed extension of the 
powers of Congress, that State has expressly and watchfully excepted 
that of meddling with the importation of negroes." Madison Papers, 
p. 1389. 

Mr. Charles C. Pinckney " thought himself bound to declare 
candidly, that he did not think South Carolina would stop her 
importations of slaves in any short time." Thus you see, sir, 
that the " deliberate declarations " to which you allude were 
made in reference to the continuance of the African slave-trade, 
and not, as you suppose, to the catching of fugitive slaves. Two 
New England gentlemen of the committee yielded to these 
declarations, and sacrificed conscience and humanity for the 
sake of the Union, and the consideration that what enriched a 



580 jay's works. 

part enriched the whole. Happily, in this case, southern bluster 
was met by southern bluster, and it is owing to Virginia, and 
not to the virtue and independence of New England, that the 
Constitution was rescued from the infamy of granting a solemn 
and perpetual guaranty to an accursed commerce. 

In Virginia, the slaves, as Mr. Ellsworth remarked, multiplied 
so fast, that it was cheaper to raise than import them. She was 
then, as now, a breeding State for the southern markets. Hence, 
her delegates were as ready to bluster for protection, as the 
South Carolina delegates were for a free trade in men and 
women. Of course the motives assigned were patriotic, not 
selfish. Mr. Eandolph " could never agree to the clause as it 
stands. He would sooner risk the Constitution." Madison 
Papers, p. 139G. Mr. Madison would not consent to the con- 
tinuance of the traffic till 1808. 

" Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended 
from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dis- 
honorable to the American character, than to say nothing about it in 
the Constitution." Madison Papers, p. 1427. 

Mr. Mason from Virginia denounced the traffic as " infernal."' 
Madison Papers, p. 1390. The result of all these threats on 
each side was, as usual, a compromise, by which Congress was 
prohibited from suppressing the foreign and internal commerce 
in slaves for twenty years, and was left at liberty to do as it 
might see fit, after that period. After twenty years the foreign 
trade was suppressed, and North and South Carolina and Georgia 
remained in the Union ! Virginia, as well as the other slave 
States, is greatly interested in the home slave-trade, and that has 
not been suppressed, although Congress has full power over it. 

It does not appear from Mr. Madison's report what reply was 
made in the Convention to the Virginia objections, but in his 
speech in the Convention of his own State, he tells us : 

" The gentlemen from South Carolina and Georgia argued in this 
manner : We have now liberty to import this species of property, and 
much of the property now possessed had been purchased or otherwise 
acquired in contemplation of improving it by the assistance of imported 
slaves. What would be the consequence of hindering us in this point ? 
The slaves of Virginia would rise in value, and we should be obliged 
to go to your markets." Elliott's Debates, HI, p. 454. 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 581 

Certainly, sir, these South Carolina and Georgia delegates 
were " very wise men," and their predictions are now history, 
and the planters of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana huy slaves of the Virginia breeders. But what 
shall I say of the wise men from the East? This horrible 
compromise, this guaranty of the African slave-trade for twenty 
years, was carried by the votes of the Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut delegates, and would have been defeated, had they had 
the courage and virtue to vote against it. 

I have indulged in this long digression, to show that the clause 
in the Constitution respecting fugitive slaves was not, as you 
represent it, the great compromise of the Constitution, the key- 
stone of the Union, and that our slave-holding fathers were not, 
as you suppose, greatly perplexed, nor their consciences deeply 
wounded, by the existence of slavery in all the States of the 
confederacy, with one exception. Having disposed of your his- 
tory, I return to your logic. 

Whether the constitutional injunction to surrender fugitive 
slaves was a compromise or not, is of no practical importance. 
The clause speaks for itself, and prescribes no mode by which 
the title of the claimant shall be ascertained, while it expressly 
implies that the title shall be established before the surrender is 
made. Hence, the fair presumption is, that the title to a man 
shall be proved, with at least as much certainty and formality as 
the title to a horse. Had you, sir, in your law, provided that a 
Virginian shall not come to Boston, and there seize and carry 
off a husband, wife, or child, but by the same process, and on as 
strong evidence, as he may now seize and carry off a horse 
which you claim as your own, instead of finding your name a 
byword and a reproach, you would have been honored and ap- 
plauded by your fellow-citizens, and returned to Congress by a 
triumphant vote ; nor is there a syllable in the Constitution 
which prohibits or discountenances such a mode of deciding the 
title to a human being. It is in vain, then, sir, that you plead 
your " constitutional obligation " in justification of your most 
detestable law. But, as if one wrong could justify another, you 
plead in your excuse the law of 1793, and you ask in your sim* 



582 jay's works. 

plicity of those who condemn your law, if they do not perceive 
that they are "denouncing their fathers." "Well, sir, were our 
fathers infallible ? Pity it is, sir, that you were not on the floor 
of Congress when that body declared the African slave-trade to 
be piracy. You might then, sir, have risen in your place, and 
inquired, " Do you not perceive that you are denouncing your 
fathers, who were very wise men, and who guaranteed for twenty 
years the very traffic which you now proclaim to be piracy ? " Pity 
it is, sir, that you did not stand by the side of your patron on 
Plymouth Rock, and whisper in his ear, " Do you not perceive 
that you are denouncing our fathers ? " when he declared, " In 
the sight of our law the African slave-trader is a tirate and a 
felon, and in the sight of Heaven an offender beyond the ordi- 
nary depth of human guilt." Mr. "Webster is better versed in 
constitutional history than you are, and he well knew that some 
of our fathers " deliberately declared they would not enter a 
Union " in which they were to be debarred from pursuing this 
piratical, felonious, guilty traffic. Our fathers were mostly slave- 
holders, and yet you, sir, unconsciously denounce both their 
morality and intelligence, when you affirm the institution of 
slavery to be " wrong and unwise." And yet all who presume 
to find fault with your cruel, unjust, wicked law, are guilty, for- 
sooth, of denouncing their fathers ! 

You tell us that the Convention of 1787 "agreed that the neio 
Constitution should have nothing to do ivith slavery." I have 
not been so fortunate as to find the record of this agreement, but 
if such a compact was indeed made, then seldom, if ever, has a 
solemn covenant been more grossly and wickedly violated. Is 
it, sir, in virtue of this agreement, that you voted to fine and im- 
prison every conscientious, humane citizen who may refuse, at 
the command of a minion of a commissioner, to join in a slave 
hunt ? Did this agreement confer on the holders of slaves an 
enlarged representation in Congress ? Was it in pursuance of 
this agreement that the importation of slaves was guaranteed 
for twenty years ? Did this agreement authorize the Federal 
Government to enter into negotiations with Great Britain and 
Mexico for a mutual surrender of runaway slaves ? Was it in 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 583 

pursuance of this same agreement, that our government nego- 
tiated with Russia and Spain to prevent emancipation in Cuba, 
— a traitorous conspiracy with despots against the rights of man ? 
How, sir, was this agreement illustrated, when Daniel Webster, 
as Secretary of State under John Tyler of glorious memory, 
made a demand on Great Britain for the surrender of the slaves 
of the Creole, who had gallantly achieved their liberty, and taken 
refuge in the West Indies ? How comes it, sir, that under this 
agreement an act of Congress secures to the slave States officers 
in the navy in proportion to the number of their slaves ? How 
is it, that under this agreement colored men are seized in the 
District of Columbia, under " the exclusive jurisdiction " of the 
Federal Government, on the suspicion of being slaves, and when 
that suspicion is rebutted by the non-appearance of any claimant, 
are sold as slaves for life, to pay their jail fees ? Perhaps it 
would be denouncing our fathers, to say that Messrs. Webster 
and Cass may search the archives of Austria in vain for any act 
so utterly diabolical as this, perpetrated by a government which 
it was agreed " should have nothing to do with slavery." Was 
it to carry out this famous agreement that the Federal Govern- 
ment officially declared through its Secretary, Mr. Calhoun, that 
Texas was annexed to preserve the institution of slavery from 
the perils that threatened it ? 

Once more, sir. We all know that the slave-holders regard 
the free blacks as dangerous to the subordination of their slaves, 
and are contemplating their forcible removal. Think you, sir, 
Mr. Webster was mindful of the agreement you have discovered, 
when, on the 7th of last March, in his place in the Senate, he 
proposed his magnificent scheme of taxing the whole nation un- 
told millions to give additional security to property in human 
beings ? 

" If," said the Massachusetts Senator, " any gentleman from the South 
shall propose a scheme of colonization to be carried on by this govern- 
ment upon a large scale, for the transportation of free colored people 
to any colony or any place in the world, I should be cpiite disposed to 
incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish the object." \ 



584 jay's works. 

The magnitude of the scheme, and the cost at which it is to 
be accomplished, are thus hinted : 

" There have been received into the treasury of the United States 
eighty millions of dollars, the proceeds of the sales of the public 
lands ceded by Virginia. If the residue should be sold at the same 
rate, the whole aggregate •will exceed two hundred millions of 
dollars. If Virginia and the South see fit to adopt any proposition to 
relieve themselves from the free people of color among them, they have 
my free consent that the government shall pay them any sum of money 
out of the jiroceeds which may be adequate for the purpose." 

Will you, sir, please to point out the article of the agreement 
of 1787, which, while it restricts Congress from having any 
thing to do with slavery, sanctions an appropriation not exceed- 
ing two hundred millions of dollars, for the purpose of strength- 
ening the institution of slavery, by relieving the slave-holders 
from the presence of free people of color, and forcibly transporting 
to any place in the world hundreds of thousands of native-born 
Americans, who have as good a constitutional right to the 
pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness on their native soil, as Mr. 
"Webster himself? Mr. Webster, it seems, now views the sub- 
ject of negro colonization in precisely the same light that he 
did thirty years since, although his intentions on this, as on vari- 
ous other points, have undergone marvellous changes. "We learn 
from a Massachusetts paper (Congregationalist, July 6, 1849,) 
that this gentleman was in 1822 appointed by a public meeting to 
draft a constitution for the State Colonization Society. After 
considerable discussion in the committee he rose and said, " I 
must leave. I understand the whole project. It is a scheme of 
the slave-holders to get rid of their free negroes. I will have 
nothing to do with it." 

And how, sir, as a member of Congress, have you fulfilled 
this agreement to have nothing to do with slavery ? Not only 
have you required " good citizens," when commanded, to hunt 
and catch slaves, but you have even fixed a money value on 
every slave. If a master fails to recover his fugitive slave 
through the agency, " direct or indirect," of any citizen, you 
give him an action for damages. In all other cases of trespass, 
the damages sustained by the plaintiff are assessed by a jury 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 585 

according to the evidence. You kindly save the master the 
trouble of proving the value of his lost property, and give him 
out of the pockets of the defendant $1000, no matter whether 
the slave was sick or well, young or old. If a woman escapes 
with a child at the breast, the master is to have $2000 ! Rec- 
ollect, sir, this is for damages to the slave-holder ; the trespasser 
is to pay to the government, which was to have nothing to do 
with slavery, another thousand dollars, and to be incarcerated 
six months. Either, sir, you have wholly mistaken the nature 
of the " agreement," or the slave-holders, through the aid of 
their northern auxiliaries, have, in defiance of the agreement, 
rendered the Federal Government a mighty engine in protect- 
ing, extending, and perpetuating the stupendous iniquity of 
human bondage. 

Your first excuse for voting for the recent slave-catching law, 
after relying on your " constitutional obligation," is, that it is 
"practically more favorable to the fugitive than tiie law of 
1793 ! ! ! " The southern lawyers, then, who drafted the bill, 
were a set of blunderers, and your constituents are blockheads 
for blaming you for legislating against human rights, when, in 
fact, you were loosening the bonds of the oppressed, and facil- 
itating escape from the prison-house. Your assertion may well 
excite astonishment at the South as well as the North, till your 
proof is known, and then, indeed, astonishment will be exchanged 
for ridicule. You tell us, 

"The evidence of such an assertion maybe found in the fact, that by 
the old law every magistrate in Massachusetts, amounting to several 
hundreds, and so in the other States, were authorized and required to 
cause the arrest of any fugitive, examine into his case, and deliver him 
to the claimant, if he was proved to be a slave ; while under the new 
law that power is limited to the justices of the United States courts, 
and to the commissioners appointed by them, not exceeding, perhaps, 
on an average, six or eight persons in each State." 

So it seems the slave-catchers had formerly no difficulty in 
! finding a magistrate among hundreds to aid them, but that now, 
! before they hunt a slave, they must hunt and catch a United 
! States judge, or a commissioner of six or eight in a whole State. 
1 Truly a hard case, and yet the slave-holders themselve.3 set the 
50 



586 jay's works. 

very trap in which they have been caught, and thus it is that, 
through their folly, and your generosity in not pointing out to 
them the blunder they were committing, the new lav/ is more 
favorable to the fugitive than the old one. Surely, sir, it could 
not have been more perilous to the young West Indian judge to 
meddle with " reasons," than it is for you. Either, sir, you voted 
for the law without reading it, or you have forgotten its provi- 
sion. Be assured, the southern lawyers were as well acquainted 
as yourself with the fact, that a few individuals, termed " com- 
missioners," had been appointed by the United States courts to 
perform certain ministerial acts ; and that, as these men were 
noAV to be promoted to the office of slave-catching judges, they 
would be wholly inadequate in number to lend efficient aid to 
the hunters of men. Hence, they inserted in the third section 
of the bill, the following enactment, which has strangely escaped 
your recollection, viz. : 

" And it is further enacted, that the Circuit Courts of the United 
States, and the Superior Courts of each organized Territory of the 
United States, shall from time to time enlarge the number of 
commissioners with a view to afford reasonable facilities to reclaim 
fugitives from labor, and to the prompt discharge of the duties imposed 
by this act." 

So that, instead of six or eight commissioners in a State, we 
are to have as many hundreds, if needed. Nor is this all. By 
the second section, the power possessed by the Circuit Courts to 
appoint commissioners is for the first time conferred on the Ter- 
ritorial courts, so that there shall be no lack of slave-catching 
judges in Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico. Instead of your six 
or eight commissioners in a State, your law contemplates that 
there shall be one or more in each county ; for the fifth section 
provides, that " the better to enable the said commissioners to 

execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, they are 

hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respec- 
tively," to appoint one or more persons to execute their warrants. 
So it seems we are to have an unlimited number of judges and 
executioners. These executioners, expressly appointed to catch 
slaves, and of course among the most worthless and degraded of 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 587 

tlie community, are one and all invested with the power of a 
high sheriff to call out the posse comitates, not merely in his 
own county, but in every hamlet in the State, and require " good 
citizens," under pain of fine and imprisonment, to join him in 
his execrable hunt. Really, sir, your " evidence " that the new 
law is more favorable to the fugitive than the old one falls short 
of demonstration. 

You thus apologize for not giving the alleged fugitive a trial 
by jury : 

" There was no more trial by jury provided for under the old law 
than under the new law. The* claim of a jury trial is entirely new ; 
never thought of till modern discussions of the subject begun. For 
fifty-seven years our fathers and we have been Hviug under the laws 
which provided no such thing, and now one which makes no such pro- 
vision is denounced in unmeasured terms as cruel and inhuman. Where 
have we all been living for half a century ? " 

Surely, sir, it is a most logical reason for not changing a 
wicked law, that it has been in force for fifty-seven years. 
Strange that the legislators of Massachusetts did not perceive' 
the force of this reasoning when they abolished the laws for 
hanging witches and whipping Quakers. Permit me, sir, to ask* 
Where had you been living when you declared it to be the duty 
of Congress to give the fugitive a trial by jury, although for 
fifty-seven years such a trial had been denied him ? You proba- 
bly forgot, sir, when giving the above " reason," that, not long 
before you took your seat in Congress, you had, as a member of 
the Massachusetts Legislature, voted for the following resolu- 
tion, viz. : 

"We hold it to be the duty of that body (Congress) to pass such 
laws only in regard thereto as will be maintained by the public senti- 
ment of the free States, where such laws are to be enforced, and which 
shall especially secure all persons, whose surrender may be claimed as 
having escaped from labor and service in other States, the right of 
having the validity of such claim determined by a jury in the State 
where such claim is made." 

So it seems that, while in Boston, you esteemed it the especial 
duty of Congress to grant the fugitive a trial by jury, but that 
in the atmosphere of Washington you accpiired new views of 
moral philosophy. 



588 JAY'S W0KK8. 

Suffer me, sir, also to inquire, Where had Mr. Webster been 
" living for half a century," when, on the 3d of last June, he 
introduced into the Senate a bill amendatory of the act of 1793, 
granting the alleged fugitive a trial by jury whenever he shall 
make oath that he is not the slave of the claimant ? 

Another of your " reasons " is, that your law does not suspend 
the habeas corpus, and in proof of its innocence in this respect, 
you refer to the opinion of " legal authority of the highest 
kind," viz., Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. It is very true that 
the words habeas corpus are omitted in your law, as the word 
slave is in the Constitution, but in neither case is the omission 
of any practical importance. You must be aware, sir, that 
whenever a person is in the custody of another, if sufficient 
ground be shown to render it probable that the custody is illegal, 
the writ is granted as a matter of right. But why is it granted ? 
That the coui't may at its discretion, according to circumstances, 
remand or discharge the prisoner. Take away from the court 
the discretionary power to discharge, and the writ is rendered 
an idle form. Your law, you say, does not suspend the habeas 
corpus; it is guiltless of such an enormity. A man who is 
carrying off one of our citizens in chains, may indeed be served 
with the writ, and he brings his prisoner before the court, and 
he produces a paper for which he paid ten dollars, and reads 
from your law, that this paper, called a certificate, " shall be 
conclusive," and " shall prevent all molestation of said person 
or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, or magis- 
trate, or other person whomsoever." It is because the word 
process, instead of habeas corpus, is used, that your law does not 
suspend the writ of freedom ! In vain may the prisoner plead 
that he is not the person mentioned in the certificate ; in vain 
may he offer to show that the certificate is a forgery ; in vain 
may he urge that the man who signed the certificate was not a 
commissioner. The little piece of paper costing ten dollars is 
to save the slave-catcher from " all molestation," not because the 
writ of habeas corpus is suspended, — 0, no ! but in consequence 
of the words " any pi'ocess ! " 

You refer to two objections, which you say are made to your 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 589 

law, and endeavor to refute them ; viz., the onerous obligations 
imposed upon the marshal, and the penalties attached to an 
attempt " to assist in the rescue of the slave after he has been 
proved to be such." You have evinced your discretion in 
confining yourself to only four objections made to your 
law ; viz., the denial of a jury trial, the suspension of the habeas 
corpus, the duties of the marshal, and the penalties imposed on 
an attempt to rescue the shave after judgment. With what suc- 
cess, and with what " reasons," you have combated the first two 
has already been seen. As to the last two, they scarcely merit 
an answer, and hence you have selected them. If the obliga- 
tions of the marshal are onerous, he has voluntarily assumed 
them by accepting the office. If, in a civilized country, a man 
attempts forcibly to rescue a prisoner in the custody of the law, 
he must expect to be punished. There are many weighty objec- 
tions to your law which you have not thought it expedient to 
notice. Permit me to supply your omission, and to tell you why 
your law is so intensely odious. And here let me again remind 
you of the true issue between you and the people. It is not 
now the constitutional power of Congress under the decision of 
the Supreme Court to pass a law for the recovery of fugitive 
slaves, — this is conceded. The odium you have experienced, 
and against which you have appealed to the public, is caused by 
your having voted for a law which, in its details, violates the 
Constitution, and outrages justice and humanity. Throughout 
your long and labored apology, you avoid grappling with these 
charges. You vindicate the denial of a jury trial only on the 
ground that it has been denied for fifty-seven years, and on the 
authority of Mr. Crittenden affirm that the habeas corpus is not 
suspended ; but you avoid the constitutional and moral objections 
urged against your law. 

By the Constitution, fugitive slaves are to be restored to those, 
and those only, who are legally entitled to their services. The 
means of ascertaining whether a man is a slave, whether he has 
fled from his master, and whether the claimant is legally entitled 
to him, are not defined by the Constitution. It is now intrusted 
to the discretion of Congress to specify these means, but of 
50* 



590 jay's works. 

course that discretion ought to he exercised in accordance with 
the Constitution, with justice, and with humanity. The com- 
plaint against you is, that you have voted for a law which 
outrages them all, and against this complaint you have failed to 
offer the shadow of a vindication. 

A Virginian comes to Boston, and there seizes one of the 
inhabitants as his slave. The man claimed declares the claim 
to he false and fraudulent. Here, then, is an issue hoth of law 
and of fact hetween two men equally entitled to the protection 
of law ; for the man claimed is on every presumption of law and 
justice to he regarded as free, till the contrary is proved. The 
issue between these two men is, I have said, one of fact and of 
law. Is the person seized the man he is said to be ? This is a 
question of fact. Admitting his identity, is he a slave, and, if 
so, does he belong to the claimant ? These are both questions 
of law, resting upon facts to be proved. Those familiar with 
the reports of southern courts know that the title to slaves is a 
frequent matter of litigation, involving intricate questions re- 
specting the validity of wills, the construction of deeds, the 
partition of estates, and the claims of creditors. By carrying 
a slave into a free State, the owner forfeits his title to him 
while there, and cannot reclaim him ; and hence the acts of the 
claimant himself may be involved in the issue. And now, sir, 
I ask, have you ever known, or can you conceive of, any issue 
at law respecting the title to property so awfully momentous to 
a defendant as the one we are considering ? Were your son or 
daughter the defendant in such an issue, would you not rejoice 
to purchase a favorable judgment by the contribution of the last 
cent of your great wealth ? Let us, then, proceed to inquire 
what provision you, in the fear of God and the love of justice 
and humanity, have made for the trial of this tremendous issue, 
— an issue on the result of which all the hopes of a fellow-man 
for the life that is, and for that which is to come, are suspended. 
In the first place, what is the pecuniary value of the plain- 
tiff's claim to himself? — for it would be an insult to humanity 
to estimate in dollars and cents the blessings of liberty and of 
the conjugal and parental relations to the unhappy defendant. 






LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 591 

You have yourself fixed the value of the plaintiffs claim at one 
thousand dollars. So far, then, the issue is, by your own 
showing, within the constitutional guaranty of trial by jury in 
all suits at common law where the matter in controversy is of 
the value of twenty dollars. But is the claim made by the 
plaintiff " a suit at common law ? " What is a suit ? The 
Supreme Court thus answers the question : 

" We understand it (a suit) to be the prosecution or pursuit of some 
claim, demand, or request. In law language, it is the prosecution of 
some demand in a court of justice." 6 Wheaton, 407. 

It seems, then, that the Virginian, in claiming an inhabitant 
of Boston as his slave, in fact brings a suit against him for ser- 
vices due worth one thousand dollars. Now remember, sir, the 
fugitive is not to be delivered up, as a mass of flesh, or inanimate 
matter, belonging to the claimant, but as a debtor, in the phrase- 
ology of your own law, " owing service or labor." The suit is 
brought for service or labor due, and the Constitution provides 
that the person so owing service or labor shall be delivered to 
^him to whom the same is " due." And now, is this suit for ser- 
vice due - a sun at common hue % " Again let the Supreme 
Court answer. 

"The phrase common law, found in this clause (the clause guarantee- 
ing a jury trial,) is used in contradistinction to equity and admiralty 
and maritime jurisdiction. It is well known, that, in civil causes in 
courts of equity and admiralty, juries do not intervene, and that 
courts of equity use the trial by jury only in extraordinary cases, 
to inform the conscience of the court. When, therefore, we find that 
the amendment requires that the right of trial by jury shall be pre- 
served in suits at common law, the natural conclusion is, that this 
distinction was present to the minds of the framers of the amendment. 
By common law, they meant what the Constitution denominated, in the 
third article, 'law ;' not merely suits which the common law recog- 
nized among its old and settled proceedings, but suits in which legal 
rights were to be ascertained and determined, in contradistinction 
to those where equitable rights alone were recognized, and equitable 

remedies were administered In a just sense, the 

amendment, then, may be construed to embrace all suits which are 
not of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, whatever may he the peculiar 
form which they may assume to settle legal rights." 3 Peters, 446. 

If there be meaning in words, these authorities settle the case, 
> and your law is in palpable violation of the amendment to the 



592 jay's works. 

Constitution securing a trial by jury in suits at common law 
where the matter in controversy exceeds twenty dollars in value. 
Think not, sir, that I am misrepresenting the Supreme Court. 
I know well that the dicta I have quoted have reference to white 
men, and that they have been virtually set aside in decisions 
respecting black men. I well know, that in our model republic, 
law and justice and morality are all cutaneous. But admitting 
that the Supreme Court have stultified themselves, and virtually 
denied, that, where a suit was brought for the services of a black 
man, the Constitution required a jury trial, recollect, sir, that 
not in one single instance has the court decided that the Con- 
stitution prohibited such a trial. But if not prohibited, then 
Congress are permitted to accord such a trial, and both you and 
Mr. Webster have declared that Congress had a right to grant such 
a tried, and ought to grant it. In voting, therefore, for a law 
denying such a trial, you made a voluntary surrender to the 
slave-holder of the security which such a trial would have 
afforded to multitudes of your poor, ignorant, oppressed fellow- 
men. For this act of cruelty and injustice, committed against 
your own late conviction of duty, what is your justification ? 
Why, that the blacks had been already deprived of the right of 
trial by jury fifty -seven years ! 

Let us now see what tribunal you have substituted for a 
jury in the trial of one of the most momentous issues that can 
engage the attention of a court of justice. You have pi'ovided 
for the appointment of an indefinite number of judges, each of 
whom is to have exclusive jurisdiction of these issues, and from 
whose judgment there is to be no appeal. The Constitution 
declares, " The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, 
shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated 
times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall 
not be diminished during their continuance in office." These 
judges are appointed by the Senate, on the nomination of the 
President. Your herd of judges, called commissioners, are 
appointed by the courts, and hold office during pleasure, and 
instead of receiving a salary, are rewarded by a rule, the infamy 
of which, it is believed, belongs to your law exclusively, — a rule 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 593 

which doubles their compensation whenever they decide in favor 
of the rich plaintiff, and against the poor and friendless defen- 
dant. But perhaps you will deny that these men are judges ; 
for, if judges, their appointment is palpably unconstitutional. 
Let us hear the Supreme Court, at a time when it was deemed 
expedient to maintain that the persons who executed the law of 
1793 were judges. 

" It is plain, that, where a claim is made by the owner out of pos- 
session for the delivery of a slave, it must be made, if made at all, 
against some other person; and inasmuch as the right is a right of 
property, capable of being recognized and asserted by proceedings 
before a court of justice between parties adverse to each other, it consti- 
tutes, in the strictest sense, a controversy between parties, and a case 
arising under the Constitution of the United States, within the express 
delegation of judicial power given by that instrument." 16 Peters, 
616. 

Hence your commissioners are, in the strictest sense, judges, 
exercising "judicial power" delegated by the Constitution. 

You pronounce Mr. Crittenden "legal authority of the highest 
kind." This legal authority understands the sixth section of 
your law as providing that each commissioner "shall have 
judicial power and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and decide the 
case in a summary manner." Now, if a man, having judicial 
power and jurisdiction to decide controversies between parties 
adverse to each other, in controversies arising under the Consti- 
tution and within the express delegation of judicial power given 
by that instrument, is not a judge, do tell us who is one. Once 
more, sir, Mr. Crittenden says, " The legal authority of every 
tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction, where no appeal lies, is of 
necessity conclusive upon every tribunal; and therefore the 
judgment of the tribunal created by this act is conclusive upon 
all other tribunals." So your commissioner is not only a judge, 
but he constitutes a tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction, and his 
judgment is binding even upon the Supreme Court of the United 
States. And yet, sir, you must deny that this omnipotent com- 
1 missioner is a judge, or you must admit, that, in the mode of his 
; appointment, you have flagrantly violated the Constitution of 
i your country. 



594 jay's works. 

It lias been most wickedly asserted by our pro-slavery presses 
and our pro-slavery politicians, that tlie surrender of fugitives 
from labor and fugitives from justice are similar proceedings. 
The surrender of a fugitive slave involves two questions, that of 
identity and that of property ; and the law makes the decision 
of the commissioner on both points final and conclusive upon 
every State and Federal court in the land. The surrender of 
a fugitive criminal involves only the question of personal identity. 
The Governor of the State issues his warrant for the apprehen- 
sion and delivery of a certain person proved to him to be charged 
with felony. If the officer arrests the wrong person, he does it 
at his peril, and a writ of habeas corpus would immediately 
release the person wrongfully arrested. Again, it is most fraud- 
ulently maintained, that, if the wrong person is by the commis- 
sioner adjudged a slave, he may sue for his freedom in a southern 
court ! Should he do so, the exhibition of the commissioner's 
certificate is by law declared to be conclusive upon all tribunals. 
But even supposing that a southern court, in defiance of law, 
should go behind the certificate, how is a free colored person 
from the North, working under the lash on a Mississippi planta- 
tion, to prove his freedom ? How is he to fee a lawyer ? How 
is he to get into court ? If once there, Avhere are his witnesses ? 
They are his friends and acquaintances of his own color residing 
in the North. How are they to be summoned to Mississippi ? 
Should they venture to enter the State, they would be impris- 
oned, and perhaps sold into slavery ; or even if permitted to 
enter the court-room, their testimony would by law be excluded, 
against the claims of a white man. How despicably profligate, 
then, is the assumption of the advocates of your law, that any 
injustice committed under it would be repaired by southern 
courts ! 

It was not enough, it seems, that the wretched defendant in 
this momentous issue should be subjected to the jurisdiction of a 
judge unknown to the Constitution, holding his office by a pro- 
hibited tenure, incapable of being impeached, and bribed to 
decide in favor of the plaintiff by the promise of double fees, but 
the very trial allowed him must be a burlesque on all the forms 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 595 

and principles of juridical justice. The plaintiff, without notice to 
the defendant, prepares himself for trial, and when his affidavits 
or witnesses are all ready, he seizes the unsuspecting victim in 
the street, and puts him instanter on his defence. Had the 
wretched man been accused of some atrocious crime, he might 
have demanded bail, and would have been permitted to go at 
large to seek for counsel, to look for witnesses, and to prepare 
for trial at some future day, of which he would have due notice. 
But no such privilege is allowed a man who is accused of oiving 
service. One of your commissioners has already decided that 
the law does not permit him to bail the prisoner. The slave 
power rides in triumph over all the barriers erected by the 
wisdom of ages for the protection of human rights. The defen- 
dant is brought, generally in irons, before your commissioner 
judge, who is required " to hear and determine the case of the 
claimant in a summary manner." The law seems not even to 
imagine the possibility of any defence being made on the part 

of the defendant. It makes no provision for such a defence, 

no assignment of counsel, no summons for witnesses. We shall 
see presently that if the plaintiff makes out a prima facie title, 
satisfactory to the commission, it is all the law requires. Let 
me now call your attention to the practical working of your 
diabolical law. A man named Rose was lately seized at De- 
troit, and brought before a commissioner as a fugitive slave. I 
copy from the newspaper report. 

" Mr. Joy (counsel for defendant) moved a postponement of the 
trial to a future day, to enable Rose to produce his papers to establish 
his right to freedom, which papers he had sworn were in Cincinnati. 
The counsel for the claimant denied that the commissioner had any 
authority_ under the law to grant a postponement. The commissioner 
agreed with the counsel for the plaintiff, that he had no authority to 
postpone the trial; and he further declared, that, even were the papers 
by which Rose teas manumitted present, he could not under the law re- 
ceive them in evidence." 

Utterly devilish as was this decision, it was sound law. The 
plaintiff had proved his title satisfactorily, and this being done, 
the commissioner was bound by the express words of the law to 
grant the certificate. He had no right to admit rebutting evi- 



596 jay's works. 

dence. It was sufficient to prove that the prisoner had been the 
slave of the claimant's father, and that the claimant was the 
heir-at-law of his father. This of itself was satisfactory, and 
therefore the commissioner had no right to admit in evidence 
the very deed of manumission granted by the father to the 
slave. The framers of the law had been as explicit as they 
dared to be. " Upon satisfactory proof being made by deposi- 
tion or affidavit, to be taken and certified, &c, or by other satis- 
factory testimony [of course, in writing, and ex parte], and with 
proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person," &c, the 
defendant is to be surrendered. Not a hint is given that any 
testimony may be received to rebut the satisfactory proof given 
by the plaintiff. You have, moreover, sir, provided a species of 
evidence never before heard of in the trial of an issue. By the 
tenth section, the claimant may go before a judge or court in 
Texas, and there make proof by affidavit that his slave has 
escaped. Whereupon, the court or judge is to certify that the 
proof is satisfactory. A record of this satisfactory proof, together 
with a description of the fugitive, is to be made, and a certified 
transcript of this record, " being exhibited to any judge, com- 
missioner, or other officer authorized," &c, " shall be held and 
taken to be full and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, 
and that the service or labor of the person escaping is due to the 
party in such record mentioned." Here all defence is taken 
from the defendant. Should he summon a host of witnesses to 
prove his freedom, not one could be heard ; should he offer a 
bill of sale from the claimant to another, it could not be re- 
ceived ; should he produce a deed of manumission, acknowledged 
and certified in a southern court, it would be waste paper. And 
thus a man's freedom is to be sacrificed on an affidavit made a 
thousand miles off. What, sir, would you think of a law that 
would authorize the seizure and sale of your property to satisfy 
a debt which any man in California might think proper to swear, 
before a Californian judge, was due from you to him ? 

Such, sir, is the trial which you, the representative of Boston, 
a descendant of the Pilgrims, and " a gentleman of property and 
standing," have accorded to the poor and oppressed. Did the 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 597 

Constitution require such a prostitution of justice, such an out- 
rage of humanity, at your hands ? I need not be told that some 
of your commissioners have not construed your law as strictly 
as did the Detroit functionary. Thanks to the force of public 
opinion, and to the zeal of some benevolent lawyers, whose 
hearts were not padded with cotton, in some instances defend- 
ants have been permitted to call witnesses in their behalf; and 
some regard has been paid to the ordinary principles of justice. 
But in all such instances, the spirit of the law and the intentions 
of its framers have been frustrated. 

And now let us listen to your " reason" for justifying all the 
atrocities and abominations of your law. You gravely tell us, 
" The entire population of the North has acquiesced in the law 
of 1793, without thinking itself exposed to the charge of bar- 
barity, and I have only to say, that I do not think the charge 
any more just now." Certainly, sir, the young colonial judge 
could not have given a reason less logical or satisfactory. You 
must be an inattentive observer of passing events, if you are 
ignorant that the law of 1793 has again and again been de- 
nounced as iniquitous, that some of the States have prohibited 
their officers from assisting in its execution, that numberless 
petitions have been presented to Congress for its repeal, and 
that you yourself, instead of acquiescing in it, solemnly de- 
clared it to be the duty of Congress so far to alter the law, as 
to grant the alleged fugitive a trial by jury. Yet the law of 
1793, wicked as it was, was justice and mercy compared with 
yours. The trials under that were almost invariably before 
judges of the State courts, not appointed like your commissioners 
for the vile and only purpose of reducing their fellow-men to 
bondage. These judges were not confined to ex -parte evidence, 
were not compelled to receive " as full and conclusive" affidavits 
made in distant States, and by unknown persons. For the most 
part, they honestly endeavored, by a patient investigation 
according to the ordinary rules of evidence, and by holding the 
plaintiff to strict legal proof, to supply the want of a jury. 

David Paul Brown, Esq., of Philadelphia, in a letter of last 
November, affirms that for the last thirty years he has been 
61 



598 jay's works. 

engaged as counsel in almost every important fugitive case 
brought before tbe judges and courts of Philadelphia, and he 
tells us, " thanks to those upright and impartial and independent 
judges by whom the rights of the parties were finally deter- 
mined," he knows of no instance in which a colored person was, 
in his opinion, wrongfully surrendered. But he adds, " I have 
known hundreds who have been illegally and unjustly claimed." 
This experienced lawyer, commenting on your law, justly says it 
allows " ex parte testimony to be received against the alleged 
fugitive, which upon no principle known to the common law 
could be received upon the claim to a horse or a dog." About 
four weeks after the date of this letter, Mr. Brown was called 
to defend an alleged fugitive " illegally and unjustly claimed," 
not before one of the " upright and impartial and independent" 
Pennsylvania judges, but before one of your ten-dollar slave- 
catching judges. I beg you to mark the result. 

On the 21st of December, a colored man was arrested in the 
street in Philadelphia, without warrant, and accused of stealing 
chickens. He was thrust into a carriage, driven to the State 
House, carried into an upper room, and handcuffed. In this 
state he was detained till a commissioner arrived. The name of 
this executor of your law is worthy of remembrance. Edward 
D. Ingraham ought to be as much endeared to slave-catchers, 
as Judge Jeffries was to James the Second. 

By some means, the arrest became known, and counsel ap- 
peared for the prisoner. Your commissioner was informed that 
the prisoner had only been seized an hour and a half before, 
and had not heard the charge against him ; that his counsel had 
had no time to learn the plaintiff's case, nor to prepare for the 
defence ; that there were persons residing at a distance, some in 
New Jersey and some in Wilmington, who would be important 
witnesses in his behalf. On these grounds, a motion was made 
for a continuance. And what, sir, do you suppose was the re- 
ply made, by the slave-catching judge to this motion ? " The 

HEARING IS TO BE A SUMMARY ONE : LET IT TROCEED." No 

doubt you fully participate in Mr. Webster's indignation against 
Austrian barbarity ; but see no barbarity in this accursed pro- 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 599 

ceeding against a colored American. The hearing did proceed, 
and James S. Price, on behalf of the plaintiff, swore that the 
prisoner was Emery Rice, the man claimed, but knew nothing 
further about his being a slave, except that he had seen him 
riding the claimant's horse ; had heard it said the prisoner was 
a slave. This was the amount of the testimony on behalf of 
the claimant. Any honest jury, nay, any honest judge, would 
instantly have decided in favor of the prisoner. Not so Mr. 
Edavard D. Ingraham. The counsel for the defendant asked 
again for a postponement, and founded the motion on the oath 
of the defendant, that he could procure six persons, naming 
them, to testify to his freedom. A delay of one hour was 
asked for. This was refused, and the judge (!) sent for a cer- 
tificate to sign. During the delay thus occasioned, one of the 
six persons named by the defendant appeared, and sAvore that he 
had known the prisoner all his life. That he was not Emery 
Rice, but Adam Gibson ; that he Avas a free man, having been 
manumitted by the will of his late master. Mr. BroAvn pro- 
duced a copy of the will of the late master, and it so far con- 
firmed the testimony of the Avitness. Another person in the 
crowd iioav came forward, and swore that he also kneAV the pris- 
oner, and that he was a free person, and that he was Adam Gib- 
son. But all was in vain. The commissioner signed the certi- 
ficate, and, with an obtuseness of intellect Avhich marked him as 
a fit subject for a commission of lunacy, declared, " He had no 
doubt of the identity of the prisoner Avith the slave Emery Rice, 
and that all other proceedings must be before the courts of 
Maryland, Avhither he Avould send him." * And so the prisoner, 
without seeing his wife and children, whom he had that morning 
parted from unsuspicious of danger and unconscious of crime, 
was hurried off at the expense of our glorious model republic, 
under an escort of officers, Avho delivered him, not to the courts 
of Maryland, but to Mr. William S. Knight, the reputed OAvner. 
But Mr. Knight told the officers, "You have brought me a 
Avrong man ; this is not Emery Rice ; this man is no slave of 

* See report in the New York Tribune, 2oth December, 18-30. 



600 jay's works. 

mine." And so Adam Gibson returned to Philadelphia, and is 
now a living illustration of the abominable iniquity of one of the 
most accursed laws to be found in the statute-book of any civil- 
ized nation. 

You do not think your law more barbarous than that of 1793. 
Let me further enlighten you. Judge McLean of the Supreme 
Court, in his opinion deliveredjast May in the case of Norris vs. 
Newton et al,, remarks, " In regard to the arrest of fugitives from 
labor, the law [act of 1793] does not impose any active duties on 
our citizens generally ;" and he argues in defence of the law, 
that " it gives no one a just right to complain ; he has only to 
refrain from an express violation of the law." In other words, 
the law only required individuals to be passive spectators of a 
horrible outrage, and did not compel them to be active partici- 
pators in other men's villany. Now, what says your law ? "Why, 
that every commissioner may appoint as many official slave- 
catchers as he pleases, and that each of these menials may 
"summon and call to their aid the bystanders or posse comitatus 
of the proper county, when necessary to insure a faithful observ- 
ance of the clause of the Constitution referred to in conformity 
with the provisions of this act, and all good citizens are 
hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt and 
efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may be 
required." And what is the fate you have provided for the 
"good citizen," who, believing slavery to be sinful, cannot, in 
the fear of God, " aid and assist " in making a fellow-man a 
slave ? Any person " who shall aid, abet, or assist " the fugitive, 
" directly or indirectly," (cunning words) to escape from such 
claimant, as, for instance, refusing to join in a slave-hunt when 
required, shall be fined not exceeding $1000, be imprisoned six 
months, and pay the claimant $1000. I hope, sir, you are now 
able to perceive that your law has a preeminence in barbarity 
over its predecessor. And now, sir, please to recollect, that 
party discipline, aided by the influence of Messrs. Webster and 
Clay, and the factory and cotton interests of Boston and New 
York, could not procure for this atrocious law the votes of one- 
half the members of the House of Representatives. Of two 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 601 

hundred and thirty-two members, only one hundred and nine 
dared to place their names on an enduring and shameful record, 
while many basely deserted their seats, fearing alike to vote 
either for or against it. You, sir, following Mr. "Webster's advice, 
" conquered your prejudices," and in company with two more 
northern Whigs, one of them a native of Virginia, cast your 
vote for this bill of abominations. But, although you voted for 
the law, you do not wish your constituents to suppose you ap- 
proved of it, " It will not, I trust, be inferred from any thing 
I have said, that I consider the law which has passed unexcep- 
tionable. There are amendments which I strongly desire to be 
introduced into it." What are the exceptionable features of the 
law, what are the amendments you desire, you refrain from 
specifying. But you tell us that you would have labored for 
those amendments " had it been possible, but every body knows 
that it was impracticable." You allude to the previous question, 
which prevented both discussion and amendments. But why, 
then, did you vote for an objectionable bill which could not be 
amended? Here, again, we have one of your unfortunate 
reasons. " I deem conformity to the design of the Constitution 
more important than the objectionable details of the bill." So, 
by your own confession, had there been no previous question, 
you would have swallowed the bill, with all its objectionable de- 
tails, out of reverence for the design of the Constitution, although 
that design neither embraced nor required a single one of those 
details. Did you, sir, vote against the previous question ? On 
this point you are silent, and the minutes afford no information ; 
but if you did, your vote was a most remarkable aberration 
from your pro-slavery course in Congress. After the previous 
question had been seconded, it was moved to lay the bill on the 
table. Had this motion been carried, you might have introduced 
another bill, omitting the " objectionable details," but you voted 
with the slave-holders. The slave-holders then moved that the 
bill be read a third time. Had this been lost, there would have 
been a chance of correcting the "objectionable details." Again 
you voted with the slave-holders, and a third time, also, on the 
main question. 

51* 



602 jay's works. 

I will now, sir, call your attention to the disastrous influence 
which your law has exerted on the moral sense of the commu- 
nity. Says Coleridge, " To dogmatize a crime, that is, to teach 
it as a doctrine, is itself a crime." Of this crime of dogmatizing 
crime, Mr. Webster, and most of our cotton politicians, and, alas ! 
many of our fashionable, genteel divines, are guilty ; nor are you 
innocent, sir, who in your law require "good citizens" to aid 
in hunting and enslaving their fellow-men. 

In former years, and before Mr. Webster had undergone his 
metamorphosis, he thus, in a speech at New York, expressed 
himself in regard to the anti-slavery agitation at the North : 

" It (slavery) has arrested the religious feeling of the country ; it has 
taken strong hold of the consciences of men. He is a rash man indeed, 
little conversant with human nature, and especially has he a very 
erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who 
supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised." 

This gentleman has become the rash man shadowed forth in 
his speech, and is trifling with and despising the religious feeling 
of the North. In his street speech in Boston, in favor of slave- 
hunting, he avowed that he was well aware that the return of 
fugitives " is a topic that must excite prejudices," and that the 
question for Massachusetts to decide was, "whether she will 
conquer her own prejudice." In his letter to the citizens of 
Newburyport, he sneeringly alludes to the " cry that there is a 
rule for the government of public men and private men which is 
superior to the Constitution," and he scornfully intimates that 
Mr. Horace Mann, who had objected to your law as wicked, 
would do well " to appeal at once, as others do, to that high au- 
thority which sits enthroned above the Constitution and the 
laws ; " and he gives an extract from a nameless English cor- 
respondent, in which the writer remarks, " Religion is an excel- 
lent thing except in politics," a maxim exceedingly palatable to 
very many of our politicians. Aware that the impiety of this 
sentiment was not exactly suited to the meridian of .Massachu- 
setts, he says his friend undoubtedly meant " a fantastical notion 
of religion." Of course, he regards the religious prejudice 
against hunting and enslaving men as springing from a fantastic 
notion of religion. Yet, with a strange fatuity, he confesses that 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 603 

" the teaching of Christ and his apostles is a sure guide to duty 
in politics, as in any other concern of life," utterly oblivious of 
the fact, that the " higher law," which he ridicules, was pro- 
claimed in that very teaching. Christ taught, " Fear not them 
(magistrates) who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul^ 
but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body 
in hell." What taught the apostles ? " TVe must obey God, 
rather than man." Such teaching it was, that gave birth to " the 
noble army of martyrs," and this very teaching will induce mul- 
titudes of Christians at the present clay to hazard fines and im- 
prisonment rather than obey the wicked injunctions of your law. 
It was this same teaching which, on the publication of your law, 
induced numerous ministers of Jesus Christ, and various eccle- 
siastical assemblies, to denounce it as wicked, and obedience to 
it as rebellion against God. This expression of religious senti- 
ment alarmed both our politicians and our merchants. How 
could the one expect southern votes, or the other southern 
trade, if the religious people at the North refused to catch 
slaves? Hence arose a mighty outcry against the blending of 
religion with politics, and most fearful were the anathemas 
against the parsons who desecrated the pulpit by preaching pol- 
itics, that is, preaching that people ought to obey God rather 
than the Fugitive Slave Act. Such men were, in the language 
of one of the New York commercial journals, " clerical preach- 
ers of rebellion," and their congregations were exhorted to " leave 
them to naked Avails." But the leaven was at work, and an 
antidote was greatly wanted. Supply of course follows demand, 
and forthwith there was a sudden advent of cotton clergymen, 
pitching against rebellion, and cunningly confounding a con- 
scientious, passive disobedience with forcible resistance. Their 
sermons, in which virtually 

" The image of God was accounted as base, 
And the image of Ctesar set up in its place," 

were received with mighty applause by the very men who had 
been striving to save the pulpit from all contaminating contact 
with politics, and the reverend preachers of cotton politics were 
elevated into patriots, and their disquisitions against the " higher 



604 jay's works. 

law " were scattered on the wings of the commercial press 
broadcast over the land.* The theology which holds that the 

* In one of the most celebrated of these sermons, we find the following 
broad assertion : — "If God has left to men the choice of the kind of gov- 
ernment they will have, he has not left it to their choice whether they will 
obey human government or not. lie has commanded that obedience." Our 
rulers command us, when required by a commissioner's agent, to aid in hunt- 
ing and seizing our innocent fellow-men, and delivering them into the hands 
of their task-masters. That the reverend preacher would render a cheerful 
obedience to such a mandate, there is little doubt. We read that the Jewish 
rulers, " The chief priests and Pharisees, had given a commandment, that, if 
any one knew where he (Jesus) was, he should show it, that they might take 
him." Strange is it, that of the college of apostles there was but one 
"good citizen," who rendered obedience to the powers ordained by God ; all 
the others suffered death for their wilful, deliberate defiance of the laws and 
Ihe magistrates of the land. As a specimen of the teaching of these cotton 
divines, I quote from this same admired sermon the following precious piece 
of information, viz. : — " Nor is it true that the fugitive slave is made an 
outlaio, and on that ground justifiable for bloody and murderous resistance of 
law. He is under the protection of law ; and if any man injures him, or kills 
him, the law will avenge him, just as soon as it would you or me." To deny 
the truth of this solemn declaration, made in the house of God, would be, in 
the reverend gentlemen's estimation, but a portion of " that perpetual abuse 
of our southern brethren " of which he complains. He must, however, per- 
mit us to call his attention to the following advertisements respecting a fugi- 
tive slave, published in the Wilmington Journal of the 18th of October last, 
in pursuance of a law of the State of North Carolina. 

' "State of North Caroli?ia, New Hanover County. — Whereas complaint upon 
oath hath this day has been made to us, two of the justices of the peace for 
the State and County aforesaid, by Guilford Horn, of Edgecombe County, 
that a certain male slave belonging to him, named Harry, — a carpenter by 
trade, about 40 years old, 5 feet 5 inches high, or thereabouts, yellow com- 
plexion, stout built, with a scar on his left leg (from the cut of an axe,) has 
very thick lips, eyes deep sunk in his head, forehead very square, tolerably 
loud voice, has lost one or two of his upper teeth, and has a very dark spot on 
his jaw, supposed to be a mark, — hath absented himself from his master's ser- 
vice, and is supposed to be lurking about in this county, committing acts of 
felony or other misdeeds : These are, therefore, in the name of the State 
aforesaid, to command said slave forthwith to surrender himself, and return 
home to his master ; and we do hereby, by virtue of the act of Assembly in 
such case made and provided, intimate and declare that if the said slave Harry 
doth not surrender himself and return home immediately after the publication 
of these presents, that any person or persons may kill and destroy the said 
slave by such means as he may think fit, without accusation or impeachment 
of any crime or offence for so doing, and without incurring any penalty or for- 
feiture thereby. 

" Given under our hands and seals, this 29th day of June, 1850. 

James T. Miller, J. P. 

W. C. Benttencourt, J. P." 

"One hundred and twenty-five dollars reward will be paid for the 
delivery of said Harry to me at Tonsott Depot, Edgecombe County, or for 
his confinement in any jail in the State, so that I can get him ; or one hun- 
dred and fifty dollars will be given for his head. He was lately heard from 
in Newbern, where he called himself Henry Barnes (or Burns) and will be 
likely to continue the name or assume that of Coppage or Farmer. He has a 
free mulatto woman for a wife, by the name of Sally Bozeman, who has lately 
removed to Wilmington, and lives in that part of the town called Texas, 
where he will likely be lurking. 

" Guilford Horn. 

" June 29, 1850." 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 605 

allegiance we owe to civil government binds the conscience to 
obedience to its mandates, is tbe same Avitli which Sliakspeare's 
assassin quieted his scruples when acting under the royal com- 
mand, — "If a king bid a man be a villain, he is bound by the 
indenture of his oath to be one." 

It is amusing to observe with what awful reverence our mer- 
chants and brokers regard the sanctity of human law, when it 
commands them to catch slaves ; a reverence not always felt by 
them for the statute of usury when the money market is tight. 

A vast deal of nonsense and impiety has been recently thrown 
upon the public in relation to the "higher law," by men who had 
political and pecuniary interests depending on the good-will of 
the slave-holders. The whole subject is perfectly simple and in- 
telligible, and has been intentionally misrepresented and mys- 
tified. 

Human government is indispensable to the happiness and 
progress of human society. Hence God, in his wisdom and 
benevolence, wills its existence ; and in this sense, and this 
alone, the powers that be are ordained by him. But civil gov- 
ernment cannot exist, if each individual may, at his pleasure, 
forcibly resist its injunctions. Therefore, Christians are re- 
quired to submit to the powers that be, whether a Nero or a 
slave-catching Congress. But obedience to the civil ruler often 
necessarily involves rebellion to God. Hence we are warned 
by Christ and his apostles, and by the example of saints in all 
ages, in such cases, not to obey, but to submit and suffer. We 
are to hold fast our allegiance to Jehovah, but at the same time 
not take up arms to defend ourselves against the penalties im- 
posed by the magistrate for our disobedience. Thus the Divine 
sovereignty and the authority of human government are both 
maintained. Revolution is not the abolition of human govern- 
ment, but a change in its form, and its lawfulness depends on 
circumstances. "What was the " den " in which John Bunyan 
had his glorious vision of the Pilgrim's Progress ? A prison to 
which he was confined for years for refusing obedience to 
human laws. And what excuse "did this holy man make for 
conduct now denounced as wicked and rebellious ? "I cannot 



606 jay's works. 

obey, but I can suffer." The Quakers have from the first 
refused to obey the law requiring them to bear ai'ins ; yet have 
they never been vilified by our politicians and cotton clergymen, 
as rebels against the powers that be, nor sneered at for their 
acknowledgment of a " higher " than human law. The Lord 
Jesus Christ, after requiring us to love God and our neighbor, 
added, " There is none other commandment greater than these ; " 
no, not even a slave-catching act of Congress, which requires us 
to hunt our neighbor, that he may be reduced to the condition 
of a beast of burden. Rarely has the religious faith of the com- 
munity received so rude a shock as that which has been given 
it by your horrible law, and the principles advanced by its 
political and clerical supporters. Cruelty, oppression, and 
injustice are elevated into virtues, while justice, mercy and 
compassion are ridiculed and vilified. 

But lately, the business of catching slaves was regarded as 
one of the lowest grades of scoundrelism. Now, great pains are 
taken by our gentlemen of property and standing to ennoble it ; 
and men of eminence in the legal profession are stooping to take 
the wages of iniquity, and lending themselves to consign to the 
horrors of American slavery, men whom they know to be inno- 
cent of crime. Nay, we have seen in New York a committee 
of gentlemen actually raising money by voluntary contributions 
to furnish a slave-catcher with professional services gratis ; — a 
free gift, not to mitigate human misery, but to aggravate the 
hardships of the poor and friendless a thousandfold. Can men 
of standing in the community thus openly espouse the cause of 
cruelty and oppression, and, from commercial and political 
views, trample upon every principle of Christian benevolence, 
without corrupting the moral sense of the people to the extent 
of their influence ? When gentlemen club together to hire a 
lawyer to assist a slave-catcher, no wonder that the commercial 
press should teem with the vilest abuse of all who feel sympa- 
thy for the fugitive. One of the most malignant pro-slavery 
journals in New York is edited by your colleague and fellow 
Whig, the Honorable Mr. Brooks, and his brother. I copy, 
sir, for your consideration, the following article from the New 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 607 

York Evening Express, published during the late trial in that 
city of Henry Long, an alleged fugitive : 

" Two fugitive cases are now before our courts ; one that of the negro 
Henry Long, and the other that of three white Frenchmen, under the 
extradition treaty with France. The negro's case makes a great deal 
of noise, because he is black ; the three white Frenchmen are hardly 
heard of. The three white French people pay their own counsel ; 
they may have committed a robbery in Paris, or may not ; are perhaps 
innocent, though possibly guilty ; but here they are on trial, with no 
chance of a trial before a jury ! If they are sent back, and are con- 
victed, they go to the galleys, and are slaves for life. The negro, 
Henry Long, lucky fellow for being black ! lives in clover here, and 
has one of the best speakers in the city, on the best fee, interests all the 
abolitionists in all opiarters, who contribute money freely for his de- 
fence, and if he is returned, leaves here canonized as a martyr, and 
goes back to the condition he was born in, to fatten on hog and hominy, 
better fed and better clothed than nine tenths of the farm laborers in 
Great Britain. Another consideration strikes us, and that is, the cost 
of defending Long will buy his freedom three times over. The very 
fee of his counsel would purchase his freedom. But to buy him and 
pay for him, not steal him, would leave no room for agitation. And 
where docs this money come from, that cares for Long and neglects 
the three Frenchmen ? From England, in the main, we believe. The 
abolitionists here do not contribute it." 

It would be difficult to find in the Satanic press a more clumsy 
piece of malignant falsehood. We have here, from the same 
pen and in the same article, the assertions, that the abolitionists 
in all quarters, we are assured, " contribute money freely for his 
defence ; " and then thelnoney, it is believed, comes mainly from 
England. " The abolitionists here do not contribute it." To 
contribute money for the legal defence of a fugitive is stealing 
him. The cost of defending Long amounted to three times the 
price that would be asked for him. Long, after his return, sold 
in Richmond for $750 ; of course his defence cost $2,250. To 
whom, and for what was this money paid ? Long could not be 
bought in New York, all advances for the purpose being peremp- 
torily repulsed. His counsel's fee was $300, being all contrib- 
uted in New York, and about $100 of it being raised by the free 
colored people. While $300 were thus raised to give Long the 
chance of a legal defence, gentlemen of the New York Union 
Safety Committee, of which your colleague has the honor of 
being a member, contributed $500 to aid the slave-catcher in 
reducing to bondage a man unaccused of crime ! 



608 jay's works. 

I am inclined to believe, sir, that you have little cause to con- 
gratulate yourself, that, in voting for the Fugitive Slave Law, 
you have advanced the cause of truth, justice, humanity, or 
religion. 

A refusal to obey your wicked law has been artfully repre- 
sented as a determination to resist its execution. Very few of 
our white population have intimated the most distant intention of 
resorting to illegal violence. Very many ecclesiastical bodies 
have denounced your law as so iniquitous, that they could not 
in conscience obey it ; but I challenge you to point to a single 
instance in which such a body has recommended forcible resist- 
ance. To the vast accumulation of impiety uttered in support of 
your law has been added a fiendish ridicule of the benevolent 
and Christian feeling arrayed against it. It is true, that some 
of our free blacks and fugitives have declared, that they would, 
at the hazard of their lives, defend themselves against the kid- 
napper. "Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of such a 
determination, be assured it will tax your logical powers to the 
utmost to prove that God has conferred the right of self-defence 
exclusively upon white men. The slave is a prisoner of war, 
and instead of being protected by law, he is subjected by it to 
every conceivable outrage. When murdered, his owner seeks 
in the courts damages at the hands of the murderer, as he would 
for the death of his horse. For no possible injury committed 
on his person, either by his owner or others, can he receive com- 
pensation, although the law may profess to punish cruelty to him 
as to other animals. Now it has never been regarded as im- 
moral, by those who admit the right of self-defence, for a pris- 
oner of war to effect his escape by slaying his guard. All 
this, I know, will horrify a certain class of our divines and 
politicians. But let them be patient. I am not laying down a 
doctrine, but stating facts, which they may disprove if they can. 
Let them remember that all the slavery which they delight to 
find in the Bible was the slavery of white men, and that the 
Roman slaves in the time of Christ, whose bondage, we are told, 
he and his apostles approved, were held by the right of war. 
White Americans have been held as slaves by the same holy 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 609 

and Scriptural tenure. Let us, then, inquire how the escape 
and resistance of white slaves have heretofore been regarded. 
In 1535, the white slaves in Tunis alone amounted to twenty 
thousand. Cervantes, who had himself been a slave in Algiers, 
says in his writings, " For liberty we ought to risk life itself; 
slavery being the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man." 
Acting upon this precept, he himself, while a slave, planned a 
general insurrection of the slaves. Yet Cervantes was recog- 
nized as a faithful son of the Church, and the license prefixed 
to his works declares they contain nothing contrary to the Chris- 
tian religion. The Annual Register for 1763 announces, that, 
" last month, the Christian slaves at Algiers, to the number of 
four thousand, rose and killed their guards, and massacred all 
who came in their way." The insurrection was suppressed, but 
no one in Europe denounced the insurgents as bloodthirsty 
wretches, nor regarded their effort as an impious and anti-Chris- 
tian rebellion against the powers ordained of God. In the reign 
of Elizabeth, one John Fox, a slave on the Barbary coast, slew 
his master, and, effecting his escape with a number of his fellow- 
slaves, arrived in England. The queen, instead of looking upon 
him as a murderer, testified her admh'ation of his exploit by 
allowing him a pension.* 

"Washington Madison performed a similar exploit on board an 
American coast slaver, and arrived, with a large number of his 
fellow-slaves, in the British "West Indies. Mr. Webster, then 
Secretary of State, officially demanded of the British government 
the surrender of this heroic man as a murderer. 

In 1793, there were one hundred and fifteen American slaves 
in Algiers, held by as perfect and Scriptural a tenure as any slave 
is now held in any part of our wide republic. Had one of these 
slaves made his escape by killing his Algerine master, would 
any of our patriotic divines, would any gentleman of the " New 
York Union Committee of Safety," would even Mr. Webster 
himself, have pronounced him a murderer ? Had the captain 
of a British ship favored his escape, and given him a passage to 

* For the facts on this subject, see the admirable work by Charles Stunner, 
entitled " White Slavery in the Barbary States." 

52 



610 jay's works. 

Boston, would your colleague, the Honorable Mr. Brooks, have 
accused him of slave stealing ? Is it not possible, sir, that, with 
very many of our casuists and moralists, questions of conscience 
are decided according to the tincture of a skin ? 

I will now ask your attention to some of the political conse- 
quences resulting from the late measures in which you rejoice, 
and for which you voted. No sooner had Congress made the 
required concessions to the slave power, than the advocates of 
those measures claimed the glory of having given peace to the 
country, and perpetuity to the Union. Mr. Webster, as one of 
the chief agents in this blessed consummation, received the con- 
gratulations of a crowd in Washington. In his reply he ob- 
served : 

" Truly, gentlemen, the last two days have been great days. A 
work has been accomplished which dissipates doubts and alarms, puts 
an end to angry controversies, fortifies the Constitution of the country, 
and strengthens the bond of the Union. 

" ' Now is the winter of our discontent 

Made glorious summer ; 

And all the clouds that lowered upon our house 
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.' " 

The glorious summer anticipated by the orator proved cold 
and brief, and if the lowering clouds were indeed buried in the 
ocean, the sea has given up its dead. Never before, since the 
organization of the government, has such a tempest of indigna- 
tion swept over the land. Never before, in a single instance, 
has there been manifested throughout the religious portion of 
the community, of all creeds and names, such a settled determi- 
nation in the fear of God to withhold obedience to a law of the 
land. The sentiments of the great mass of the people of the 
free States, exclusive of the commercial cities, are briefly but 
emphatically embodied in a resolution of the Common Council 
of Chicago, viz. : 

" The Fugitive Slave Act recently passed by Congress is revolting 
to our moral sense, and an outrage on our feelings of justice and 
humanity, because it disregards all the securities which the Constitu- 
tion and laws have thrown around personal liberty, and its direct ten- 
dency is to alienate the people from their love and reverence for the 
government and institutions of our country." 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 611 

How far the clouds which hovered over our house have been 
dissipated, let the recent rout of Mr. "Webster's party in Massa- 
chusetts testify. Let his own declaration, a month after the 
peace measures were adopted, that the Union was passing 
through a fiery trial, testify.* How far the work of the two 
days has fortified the Constitution, let the recent law of Ver- 
mont, denounced as an utter nullification of the Constitution, 
because it rescues the alleged fugitive from the hands of the 
commissioner, and gives him a jury trial before a State court, 
testify. When rumors were rife that Mr. Webster intended to 
repudiate his own thunder, the Wilmot Proviso, the New Fork 
Herald, the chief northern organ of the slave-holders, promised 
that, if the senator would indeed pursue a course so patriotic, a 
grateful country would, at the next election, place him in the 
presidential chair. But scarcely had tbe acts advocated by Mr. 
Webster been consummated, than the Herald, with sardonic 
malice, announces, — 

" The predictions of Mr. Clay, that the Compromise Bill would 
speedily conciliate all parties, and restore the era of good feeling, were 
exactly the reverse of the actual consequences. Mr. Webster has been 
cast overboard in Massachusetts. General Cass has been virtually con- 
demned in Michigan. Mr. Dickinson, the President, and his cabinet, 
have been routed in New York. Mr. Phelps has been superseded in 
Vermont. AVhilst in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, the Free 
Soilers have carried off the booty." And he winds up with declaring, 
that the next President " can't be Fillmore nor Webster." 

If the " peace measures " have strengthened the bond of the 
Union, what mean all the meetings lately held to save the 
Union ? Why is the tocsin now sounded by the very authors 
and friends of the measures ? How comes it that, in Boston 
itself, the chairman of a Union meeting contradicts the exulting 
and jubilant shout of triumph uttered by the Secretaiy of State, 
and makes the following doleful announcement ? 

" The Union, and consequently the existence of this nation, is men- 
aced, and unless there is a great and general effort in their support, 
we may soon behold the mighty fabric of our government trembling 
over our heads, and threatening by its fall to crush the prosperity which 
we have so long and happily enjoyed." 

* Letter to Union Meeting in New York, 28th Oct., 1850. 



612 jay's works. 

So relaxed has become the bond of our Union, that one hun- 
dred gentlemen of property and standing in New York have, 
under the style and title of " The New York Union Committee 
of Safety," assumed the onerous task of taking it into their 
safe keeping. " Committees of safety " are associated with times 
of peril and anarchy, and are never wanted when alarms have 
ceased, angry discussions ended, the Constitution fortified, and 
the bond of Union strengthened. 

In this universal panic, in this dread entertained, especially 
in Boston, by Mr. Webster's friends, of soon seeing the mighty 
fabric of our government trembling over their heads, it may, sir, 
be consolatory to you and others to know how so dire a calamity 
may be averted. The chivalric senator from Mississippi — the 
gentleman who threatens to hang one senator if he dare place 
his foot on the soil of Mississippi, who draws a loaded pistol on 
another, and for a third bears a challenge to mortal combat — 
was lately in the city of New York. The Committee of Safety 
found him out, and lauded him for his fearless discharge of duty, 
and his fervor and devotion to the Union, and welcomed him to 
the commercial emporium in the name of all who appreciate the 
blessings we enjoy, and are willing to transmit them to their 
children. The worthy and conciliatory gentleman very appro- 
priately communicated to the committee having the Union in 
charge the conditions on which alone it could be saved, notwith- 
standing its bond had so recently been strengthened. These 
conditions are, we learn, four in number. 

1. " The Fugitive Slave Bill passed by Congress shall remain 
the law of the land, and be faithfully executed." 

Both you and Mr. Webster admit that the Constitution per- 
mits a jury trial to the fugitive. Should Congress, in its wisdom, 
and in obedience to the wishes of the great mass of the northern 
population, and in the exercise of its constitutional power, elevate 
property in a human being to the same level with that in a 
horse, and permit a jury to pass upon the title to it, — the Union 
must be dissolved. 

2. " The Wilmot Proviso, that monstrous thing, shall not be 
revived." It was not courteous, certainly, in Mr. Foote thus to 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 613 

characterize Mr. Webster's thunder. The claim to this thunder 
was made in his speech, September, 1847, at the Springfield 
Convention, which nominated him for President ; and the Con- 
vention, in his presence, thus declared their devotion to his 

missile : 

" The Whigs of Massachusetts now declare, and put this declaration 
of their purpose on record, that Massachusetts will never consent that 
Mexican territories, however acquired, shall become a part of the 
American Union, unless on the unalterable condition that there shall 
be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in punish- 
ment for crime." 

The next year Mr. Webster launched his thunder over the 
Territory of Oregon, and thus in his speech (10th August, 
1848) vindicated it from the character now given to it by Mr. 
Foote : 

" Gentlemen from the South declare that we invade their rights when 
we deprive them of a participation in the enjoyment of territories ac- 
quired by the common services and common exertions of all. Is this 
true ? Of what do we deprive them ? Why, they say that we deprive 
them of the privilege of carrying their slaves as slaves into the new 
territories. Well, sir, what is the amount of that? _ They say, that in 
this way we deprive them of going into this acquired territory with 
their property. Their property ! What do they mean by this ' pro- 
perty ? ' We certainly do not deprive them of the privilege of going 
into those newly acquired territories with all that, in the general esti- 
mate of human society and common and universal understanding of 
mankind, is esteemed property. Not at all. The truth is just this. 
They have in their own States peculiar laws which create property in 

persons. The real meaning, then, of southern gentlemen, in 

making this complaint, is, that they cannot go into the territories of the 
United States carrying with them their own peculiar law, a law 
which creates property in persons." 

So the Wilmot Proviso was no monstrous thing at all, as 
applied to Oregon. When the question came up of applying 
this same Proviso to New Mexico and California, Mr. Webster 
discovered in these Territories a certain peculiarity of physical 
geography and Asiatic scenery which he had not discovered in 
Oregon, and which, he found, rendered it a physical impossibility 
for southern gentlemen to carry there " a law which creates 
property in persons," and he therefore gave them full liberty to 
carry their law into those vast regions, if they could. But at 
52* 



614 jay's works. 

the very moment of giving this liberty to southern gentlemen, he 
courageously warned them that his thunder was good constitu- 
tional thunder, and would be used whenever necessary. 

" Wherever there is an inch of land to be stayed back from becoming 
slave territory, I am ready to insert the principle of the exclusion of 
slavery. I am pledged to that from 1837, — pledged to it again and 
again, and I will perform those pledges." 

So, should we get another slice of Mexico, or annex Cuba or 
St. Domingo, Mr. "Webster would revive the Wilmot Proviso, 
and then he will be the means, if he succeeds, of dissolving the 
Union ! 

3. The next condition announced to the Safety Committee 
is, — " No attempt shall be made in Congress to prohibit slavery 
in the District of Columbia." 

Now it is the opinion of Mr. Webster, that Congress has the 
constitutional right, not merely to attempt, but actually to effect, 
the exclusion of slavery in all the Territories of the United 
States. The District of Columbia being placed by the Consti- 
tution expressly under " the exclusive jurisdiction " of Con- 
gress, the constitutional right to abolish slavery there has rarely 
been questioned ; but it has been contended that good faith to 
the States which ceded the District forbids such an act of con- 
stitutional power. Hence, in 1838, a resolution was introduced 
into the Senate declaring that the abolition of slavery in the 
District would be " a violation of good faith," &c. What said 
Mr. Webster? 

"I do not know any matter of fact, or any ground of argument, on 
which this affirmation of plighted faith can stand. I see nothing in the 
act of cession, and nothing in the Constitution, and nothing in the 
transaction, implying any limitation on the authority of Congress." * 

* On the 10th of January, 1838, Mr. Clay moved in the Senate the following 
resolution, viz. : — " Resolved, that the interference by the citizens of any of 
the States, with a view to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endan- 
gering the rights and security of the people of this District ; and that any 
act or measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in this District would 
be a violation of the faith implied in the cession by the States of Virginia 
and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slave-holding States, 
and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the 
Union." Passed, 38 to 8, Mr. Webster voting in the negative. Senate Jour- 
nal, 2 Sess. 25 Cong., p. 127. 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 615 

4. The last condition on which the Union can be preserved 
i Sj — " No State shall be prevented from coming into the Union 
on the ground of having slavery." This is an unkind cut at 
Mr. Webster, since he has again and again pledged himself 
against the admission of slave States. Even so early as 1819, 
he advocated, in a public meeting at Boston, a resolution declar- 
ing that Congress 

" Possessed the constitutional power, upon the admission of any new 
State created beyond the limits of the original territory of the United 
States, to make the prohibition of the further extension of slavery or 
involuntary servitude in such new State a condition of admission. 
That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is just and expedient that this 
power should be exercised by Congress upon the admission of all new 
States created beyond the original limits of the United States." 

In his New York speech, in 1837, he averred, 

" When it is proposed to bring new members into the political part- 
nership, the old members have a right to say on what terms such new 
partners are to come in, and loliat they are to bring along with them." 

In his Springfield speech, he insisted, 

" There is no one (he forgot Mr. Foote and his other southern 
friends) who can complain of the North for resisting the increase of 
slave representation, because it gives power to the minority in a manner 
inconsistent with the principles of our government." 

So late as 1848, he proclaimed on the floor of the Senate, 

" I shall oppose all such extension (slave representation) at all times 
and under all circumstances, even against all inducements, against all 
combinations, against all compromises." 

The State of Georgia, in her convention of December last, 
added a fifth condition to those stated by Mr. Foote as indispen- 
sable to the preservation of the Union, viz. : — "No act sup- 
pressing the slave-trade between the slave-holding States." 
Unfortunately for Mr. Webster, he is here, for the fifth time, 
virtually held up as a disorganizer, and an enemy of the Union ; 
for in his speech in the Senate (February 6, 1837) he remarked : 

" As to the point, the right of regulating the transfer of slaves from 
one State to another, he did not know that he entertained any doubt, 
because the Constitution gave Congress the right to regulate trade and 



616 jay's works. 

commerce between the States. Trade in what ? In whatever was 
the subject of commerce and ownership. If slaves were the subjects 
of ownership, then trade in them between the States was subject to the 
regulation of Congress." 

Mr. Webster declared, that the work of the two days in 
•which he rejoiced had fortified the Constitution, and strengthened 
the bond of the Union ; and yet we are now solemnly warned, 
by the very men and party with whom he is acting, that the 
bond is to be severed, should Congress pass any one of five laws, 
all and each of which he, the great expounder, declares the 
Constitution authorizes Congress to pass. So it seems the 
great peril to which we are exposed, the course which is to 
make the fabric of our government to tremble over the heads of 
the people of Boston, is, not the violation of the Constitution, 
nor the breach of its compromises, nor the invasion of the rights 
of the South, but the exercise by Congress of powers which Mr. 
Webster declares to be undoubtedly constitutional. The aboli- 
tionists supposed they were following a safe guide when they 
confined themselves, in their petitions to Congress for legislative 
action against slavery, exclusively to such measures as they 
were assured, by the eminent expounder, were strictly constitu- 
tional. The abolitionists have sympathized with this gentleman 
in the obloquy he incurred, in common with themselves, for 
holding opinions unpalatable to the slave-holders, and for main- 
taining the constitutional rights of Congress. Because he 
insisted, in the Senate, on the power of Congress over slavery 
and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, Mr. Rives, of 
Virginia, was so unkind as to say, that the gentleman from Mas- 
sachusetts, " if it so pleased his fancy, might disport himself in 
tossing squibs and firebrands about this hall ; but those who are 
sitting upon a barrel of gunpowder, liable to be blown up by 
his dangerous missiles, could hardly be expected to be quite 
as calm and philosophic." Because he presented anti-slavery 
petitions, and insisted on the duty of Congress to consider them, 
Mr. King, of Alabama, affirmed that the course which the 
senator from Massachusetts had taken had " placed him at the 
head of those men who are inundating Congress with their 
petitions." Strange as it may now seem, Mr. Cuthbert, of 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 617 

Georgia, told Mr. "Webster to his face in the Senate, " The gen- 
tleman had uniformly been opposed to all those measures which 
tended to quiet the country and heal those sectional dissensions 
which distract the Union." * Surely, when the abolitionists 
have so long made Mr. Webster their polar star in all constitu- 
tional questions, and have incurred with him the accusation of 
tossing squibs and firebrands, and of opposing measures which 
tended to quiet the country and settle sectional dissensions, they 
had a right to expect from his friends a larger share of compas- 
sion and forbearance than they have experienced. 

It would seem, sir, that, in the late treaty of peace between 
the North and the South, it has been agreed and understood, 
that every power granted by the Constitution whereby slavery 
can be protected, extended, and perpetuated, is to be actively 
enforced ; and that every power which might be used for cur- 
tailing human bondage, however unquestionable may be its 
grant, shall forever remain dormant, under the penalty of an 
immediate dissolution of the Union. This, sir, is the treaty 
which our commercial cities are glorifying ; this is the treaty 
which has turned our " winter of discontent " into " glorious 
summer." And think you, sir, that the slave-holders, having 
eyes, see not, and having understandings, perceive not, the 
haberdashery patriotism which rejoices in such a treaty, and 
denounces as " fanatics," " vipers," and " woolly -headed philan- 
thropists," all who do not confess it to be a glorious consumma- 
tion ? The southern papers tell us that our Union meetings 
are got up to " sell a little moi'e tape and flannel," and they 
remark, " It is very queer that Union meetings are held only in 
places which trade with the South." Out of regard to their 
southern brethren, a member of the British House of Commons 
was insulted in Faneuil Hall by a portion of the Boston people, 
and forthwith the New Orleans Delta, instead of gratefully ac- 
knowledging the compliment, remarks, that their " good Union- 
loving friends in Boston are now solacing the South, with sugar- 
plums in the shape of resolutions and speeches, and spice in the 
form of a row, got up on the occasion of the first appearance of 

* Speech, June 8, 1836. 



618 jay's works. 

George Thompson, an imported incendiary and hireling agitator. 
Such manifestation possesses an advantage which doubtless con- 
stitutes no small recommendation with our good brethren of 
Boston, — it is very cheap. The cottoncratical clerks and 
warehousemen may raise a hubbub in Faneuil Hall, but the 
fanatics can slay them at the polls" 

It is some consolation to those who are now suffering all the 
contempt and opprobrium which can be thrown both upon their 
heads and their hearts, because they have refused to follow Mr. 
Webster in the devious paths in which it has lately been his 
pleasure to walk, that they have by their constancy and firmness 
extorted from their southern antagonists a tribute which is not 
paid to their revilers. Said Mr. Stanley, of Virginia, in his 
speech in the House of Representatives last March, speaking of 
a certain class of northern politicians, — "I would say, with a 
slight alteration of one of Canning's verses, — 

'"Give me the avowed, erect, and manly foe, 
Open I can meet, perhaps may turn, his blow ; 
But of all the plagues, great Heaven, thy wrath can send, 
Save, save me from a dough-face friend ! ' " 

In closing this long letter, permit me to advert to the opinion 
expressed abroad of your Fugitive Law. Mr. Webster thought 
it convenient to quote the sentiment of a nameless correspondent, 
as to the mischievous mixture of religion with politics. Pos- 
sibly the opinion of Dr. Lushington, one of the Lords of the 
Privy Council, Judge of the Vice- Admiralty Court, and the ne- 
gotiator, on the part of Great Britain, of a recent treaty with 
France, may be entitled to at least equal weight. This gentle- 
man, in a private letter to an English friend, and not intended 
for publication, thus speaks of your law : 

" No one can feel more sincerely than myself, abhorrence of the 
Fugitive Slave Bill, — a measure as cruel and unchristian as ever 
disgraced any country." 

An Irish liberal, writing from Dublin, says : 

" I long looked to your country as the ark of the world's liberties. 
I confess I hope for this no longer. The Fugitive Slave Bill is a 



LETTER TO SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 619 

shocking sample of the depravity of public sentiment in the United 
States. So atrocious a measure could not have passed into a law, if 
the majority of the people had not actively assented, or passively con- 
sented. Here, by the preponderating influence of our aristocracy, a 
small, but compact body, measures are often carried into laws that are 
very distasteful to multitudes ; but such a mean, vile law as the Fugi- 
tive Slave Bill could not pass in England." 

The English press, Whig, Tory, and Radical, is indignant at 
the atrocities of your law. The taunt of our slave-holders, that 
the English had better reform abuses at home, is thus met by a 
radical journal, The People : 

" The Americans laugh at us when we speak of American slavery, 
so long as so many of our fellow-subjects in England and Ireland are 
perishing from starvation through monarchial and aristocratical tyranny. 
We answer, that the Americans know that the men and women who 
lift up their voices against American slavery are the enemies of British 
tyranny and oppression." 

Your law, sir, degrades the national character abroad ; its ex- 
cessive servility to southern dictation excites the contempt of 
the slave-holders for the easy, selfish virtue of their northern 
auxiliaries, while its outrages upon religion, justice, humanity, 
and the dearest principles of personal freedom, under pretence 
of preserving the Union, weaken the attachment of conscientious 
men for a confederacy which requires such horrible sacrifices for 
its continuance. All these evils might have been easily avoided 
by a law satisfying every requirement of the Constitution, and 
yet treating the alleged fugitive as a man, and granting him the 
same protection as is accorded to an alleged murderer. God 
gave you, sir, an opportunity for which you ought to have been 
grateful, of illustrating your Puritan descent by standing forth 
before the nation as an advocate of justice and freedom, and of 
the rights of the poor and oppressed. Through a blind devotion 
to a political leader, you rejected the palm which Providence 
tendered to your acceptance, and have indelibly associated your 
name with cruelty and injustice. Had you retired from the no- 
tice of the public, as you did from the suffrages of the electors, 
you had acted wisely. In an evil hour for yourself, you stood 
forth as the champion of the Fugitive Slave Law. Its enemies 



620 jay's works. 

rejoice in your rashness, for your feeble apology has rendered 
its deformities more prominent, and, by failing to vindicate, you 
have virtually confessed its abominations. May you live, sir, to 
deplore the grievous error you have committed, and, by your 
future efforts in behalf of human freedom and happiness, atone 
for the wound they have received at your hand. 

February, 1851 



AN ADDRESS 



TO THE ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. SIGNED BY A NUMBER OF CLERGY- 
MEN AND OTHERS. 



June, 185 2, 



Friends and Brethren: — We address you in behalf of 
the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Approving 
of the principles avowed and the measures pursued by that 
association, we beg leave to submit to you the considerations 
which peculiarly entitle it at the present juncture to the active 
sympathy and effectual aid of the friends of the anti-slavery 
cause. 

"While the advocates of constitutional government in Europe 
are lamenting a wide-spread reaction in behalf of despotic 
authority, the friends of the inalienable rights of man behold 
with grief and mortification a similar reaction in our own Re- 
public, in behalf of a despotism more inexorable, and more 
hostile to human progress and happiness, than any which afllicts 
the eastern continent. In both instances, the reaction is more 
apparent than real. Opinions in favor of human liberty remain 
the same, but the expression of them has, to a greater or less 
degree, been stifled by a sudden, mighty, and combined effort of 
capitalists and politicians, aided to a great extent by ecclesias- 
tical influence, and in each case accompanied with violated 
pledges and revolting perfidy. 
53 



622 jay's works. 

In our own community, the cause of Christian morals has 
been deeply wounded, and a new impulse given to infidelity, by 
the various modes adopted by merchants, politicians, and divines 
to conciliate the slave-holding interest. Doctrines have been 
advanced on high authority respecting the supremacy of human 
laws, which, if true, convict the " noble army of martyrs," in- 
cluding the blessed apostles themselves, of being but felons and 
traitors. Public men, and even public meetings, have professed 
in unqualified terms their ignorance of a higher law than the 
Federal Constitution. Rich men among us have given of their 
abundance to reduce to slavery the fugitive from bondage ; and 
lawyers, heretofore regarded as reputable, have not shrunk from 
taking reward against the innocent, and prostituting a noble 
profession to the service of the slave-catcher. The sympathy 
heretofore felt for the victim of oppression who had escaped 
from his prison-house, and the repugnance manifested to aid in 
his arrest, have been denounced as "prejudices to be conquered ;" 
and lips which once uttered noble words in behalf of human 
rights, have been busily employed in proclaiming to republicans 
the duty and the glory of catching slaves. Nay, some professed 
ambassadors of the merciful Jesus have announced from their 
pulpits that He has sanctioned the conversion into articles of 
merchandise of beings charged with no crime, made a little 
lower than the angels, and redeemed by his own blood ! A law 
has been passed for the recovery of fugitive slaves, which, for 
its cool violation of all the received and acknowledged principles 
of judicial justice, for its outrages on humanity, and for its arbi- 
trary requirement of every citizen to assist in a slave-hunt when 
commanded by an official menial, is unexampled in the legislation 
of any Christian country. Yet an active agency in the execu- 
tion of this most detestable law has been made, even by professed 
ministers of the gospel, a test of Christian obedience. 

The success which has thus far attended the combined effort 
to which we have referred, has been in a great measure owing 
to the fancied security of the North and the simulated violence 
of the South. 

The war against Mexico was waged for the acquisition of 

i 
i 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. G23 

slave territory, and great was the fear felt by the North that 
human bondage would be extended to the shores of the Pacific. 
No less than fourteen States protested, through their Legisla- 
tures, against any enlargement of the area of slavery. The 
voice of Daniel Webster was raised to warn his countrymen of 
the impending calamity, and to approve and enforce the great 
principles announced by the Free Soil Convention at Buffalo. 
The innate love of liberty was awakened throughout the North, 
and its representatives in Congress bowed to the will of their 
constituents ; and all the devices of the slave-holders to procure 
territorial governments for the conquered territories, allowing 
the slavery of a portion of the inhabitants, were defeated. Soon, 
the "Wilrnot proviso, applied, with the assistance of Daniel 
"Webster, to Oregon, secured that important territory to freedom. 
This was followed by the joyful intelligence that New Mexico 
and California had both adopted State Constitutions prohibiting 
slavery. A shout of victory ascended from the North, and the 
greatness of the triumph was supposed to be attested by the 
wailings of desperation uttered by the slave-holders. It was at 
this moment of fancied security that the capitalists and politicians 
contrived a panic about the Union, and traders in southern votes 
and merchandise devised the patriotic work of saving the Union, 
by surrendering the territories of New Mexico and Utah to the 
slave-holders, and making slave-hunting a national sport, under 
regulations of extraordinary cruelty. The work was hastened 
on by the most astounding treachery, supported by the audacious 
assumption that the law of physical geography and Asiatic 
scenery rendered it physically impossible that any portion of the 
vast region conquered from Mexico could ever be trodden by 
slaves. 

A dissolution of the Union could have no other effect on the 
slave-holding interest than to break down those bulwarks which 
the Federal Government, from its beginning, has been busy in 
raising around it, and to rouse all beyond the slave territory into 
active hostility. But although the Union was in little clanger, 
the work of saving it was no less profitable than patriotic, as it 
tended to prevent the political and commercial non-intercourse 



624 jay's wokks. 

threatened by the South ; and the proceedings of Union-saving 
committees were found a convenient mode of advertising for the 
trade and the votes of the slave-holders. In this manner an 
influence was exerted which, aided by the supposed security of 
the North, led to the so-called Compromise, in which the fruits 
of the recent victory were all thrown away, with the single 
exception of the anti-slavery Constitution of California. Some- 
thing was indeed gained to the character of the national capital, 
by prohibiting the importation of slaves for sale, but nothing to 
the cause of humanity, since the traffic was only transferred from 
Washington to Alexandria. "In return for the California Con- 
stitution, which Congress could not have prevented and did not 
dare to annul, we have had the prodigious enlargement of the 
slave State of Texas, the abandonment of New Mexico and 
Utah to slavery, and the enactment of the fugitive bill, as drafted 
by the slave-holders themselves, forced through the House of 
Representatives without discussion, and so intensely odious and 
wicked, that not even personal interest nor party discipline could 
induce one half of the" members of the Lower House to incur 
the infamy of giving it their votes. 

The political parties, having thus conciliated the slave-holders, 
entered upon a new race between themselves for power and 
office, and mutually agreed to prevent, as far as possible, all 
interference in the race by the avowed friends of human rights. 
The anti-slavery agitation was to be suppressed at all hazards ; 
and every man who expressed sympathy for the oppressed, or 
indignation against slave-hunts, was to be driven from either 
party. By virtue of this compact, similar in its spirit to that 
which in Europe is smothering every aspiration for freedom, all 
who protest against the oppression of millions of native-born 
Americans, are to be deemed disturbers of the public peace, 
while the powers of slave-holders, like those of kings, are to be 
regarded as held by the grace of God, and too sacred to be 
discussed or questioned. 

It is under these circumstances, painful, mortifying, and unex- 
pected, that we address ourselves to the anti-slavery Christians 
of the United States. The whole question of the duty of oppo- 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. 625 

sition to slavery rests on the sinfulness of reducing innocent 
men and women, and their children after them, to articles of 
merchandise. If human beings may be held as chattels, they 
are, of course, legitimate subjects of traffic, and the African, no 
less than the American slave-trade, is a commendable and a 
Christian commerce. The lawfulness of slavery in no degree 
depends on the complexion of its victims, since the slavery 
alleged to be recognized in the Scriptures was unquestionably 
that of Asiatics and Europeans. None of our clerical champions 
of the institution ever venture to dwell on its accordance with 
the attributes of the Deity, or the precepts of the gospel. On 
what ground, then, is the moral vindication of American slavery 
rested ? On the alleged fact that God permitted the Jews to 
hold certain heathen as slaves, and that, consequently, it cannot 
be morally wrong in Americans to hold their own countrymen, 
and even their fellow-Christians, and often their own children, 
brothers and sisters, as slaves. Without admitting the premises, 
we utterly deny the conclusion drawn from them. The Creator 
and Judge of all men, infinite in wisdom, goodness, justice, and 
power, selects his own modes of maintaining his moral govern- 
ment, and of inflicting deserved punishment ; and none may say 
unto him, " What doest thou ? " To him belongeth vengeance, 
and none may execute it in his name, except by his appoint- 
ment. He saw fit to destroy by water a guilty world ; but will 
it be inferred from this act of divine sovereignty that saints have 
a moral right to drown sinners ? For their extreme wickedness, 
the seven nations of Palestine were doomed to extermination, 
and the Jews were ordered to take possession of their land, and 
to put all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, to the 
sword ; to make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto 
them. Does this commission to the Jews confer upon us similar 
rights in other lands ? The nations adjoining Palestine were 
idolatrous and otherwise excessively depraved; and we are 
assured by pro-slavery divines that God, by an express revelation, 
gave the Jews the privilege of buying and holding their inhab- 
itants as slaves ; and hence we are taught that, without any 
similar revelation to ourselves, we are authorized to keep our 
53» 



626 jay's works. 

own brethren in bonds, and to reduce them to the condition of 
beasts of burden, in defiance of the express commands of God 
to do justice and to love mercy, and to do to others as we would 
they should do unto us. We utterly deny the authorized ex- 
istence of hereditary chattel slavery in the Jewish common- 
wealth, such slavery being absolutely forbidden by the universal 
emancipation proclaimed on each returning Jubilee. But so far 
as relates to the lawfulness of American slavery, it is Avholly 
immaterial whether the Jews held slaves or not, since it is ad- 
mitted by all that if they did, they acted by virtue of a special 
and express permission from God, while it is equally admitted 
that no such permission has been given to us. If American 
slavery be sanctioned by the religion of Jesus Christ, then, 
indeed, is that religion an inextricable riddle, both tolerating and 
forbidding every species of cruelty, injustice, and oppression. 

Friends and brethren, we believe before God that American 
slavery is hateful in his sight, and utterly irreconcilable with the 
holy and merciful precepts of the gospel of his Son. Hence, 
we believe it morally wrong to render any voluntary aid in 
upholding an iniquitous system, or in reducing a fellow-man to 
bondage. 

We are continually told that the Federal Government has 
nothing to do with slavery, and yet from a very early period its 
powers have been exerted to protect, to extend, and to perpetuate 
the institution. It is the object of the American and Foreign 
Anti- Slavery Society to effect, as far as possible, an entire 
divorce of the Federal Government from the subject of slavery. 
In relation to the constitutional powers of the Federal Govern- 
ment, we indulge in no opinions more ultra than such as have 
been avowed by Daniel "Webster himself. With him we hold 
that Congress is fully authorized to abolish and to forbid slavery 
in its own territories, to suppress the commerce in slaves between 
the States, and to refuse admission into the Union of new slave 
States. We also cordially concur in his "judgment," expressed 
in his speech in the Senate, on the 7th of March, 1850, that the 
Constitution does not confer on Congress the right to legislate 
respecting fugitive slaves. In accordance with these views, the 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. 627 

American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society aims at delivering 
the General Government from all entangling alliance with 
slavery, and they desire to effect this much desired deliverance 
by inducing the people to select for their representatives in 
Congress such men only as will resolutely refuse to legislate in 
behalf of slavery. 

But as anti-slavery Christians, our' duties in regard to this 
horrible and sinful system extend beyond the jurisdiction of 
the Federal Government, and reach even to the slave-holders 
themselves. True Christianity is an aggressive religion. " Go 
ye into all the world," was the command of its divine founder. 
Can it be our duty to send missionaries into China and Hindos- 
tan, to rebuke the sins of their inhabitants, and to prostrate in 
the dust their altars and their gods, and yet to observe the silence 
of the grave in regard to a sin which, in our 'own country, 
reduces millions to ignorance, degradation, and wretchedness, 
and, by denying them the lamp of life, keeps them in virtual 
heathenism ? Convinced that slavery is a sin, we have not only 
the right, but are bound by the obligations of Christianity, to 
oppose it, and to use all lawful means for its abolition, whether 
in our own or other countries. If slavery be not sinful, then we 
know not what degree of cruelty and injustice amounts to a 
violation of the law of God. 

A combination of circumstances has led many of our clergy 
at the North, and nearly all at the South, to regard slavery, with 
all its inseparable abominations, an exception from the Christian 
code. We must love all men as ourselves, with the exception 
of such as are black. With the same exception, we must do 
good unto all men, and exercise justice and mercy to all. We 
must give Bibles to men of all lands and all races, except to 
about three millions of blacks in our midst. The laws must 
protect the marriage tie, except in the case of these same mil- 
lions. Supplications must be made for all men, except those 
among us who are of all men the most miserable. In short, as 
Christians, we must rebuke every sin except that giant sin of 
our nation which involves the perpetration of almost every other. 
But it is affirmed, by way of apology, that we at the North are 



628 jay's works. 

free from this sin, and have therefore no concern with it. "Were 
the assertion true, the apology -would be equally valid for not 
attempting to overthrow the idolatry of the Hindoos, or the 
delusions of the false prophet, and for recalling all our mission- 
aries to the heathen. But unfortunately the assertion is utterly 
destitute of truth. Probably not a sermon is preached in our 
large city churches which is not listened to by slave-holders ; 
probably not a congregation is assembled in the free States 
which does not include persons directly or indirectly interested 
in slavery. How many of our sons are constantly removing to 
the South, and becoming slave-holders ! "What numbers of our 
daughters are mistresses on slave plantations ! How many 
northern clergymen now descant from southern pulpits on the 
divine rights of slave-holders! And shall we be told that 
northern Christians have no cause to raise their voices against 
a sin which is daily corrupting their sons, their daughters, their 
politicians, and their clergy ? Alas ! there is a mighty conspi- 
racy, prompted by selfish considerations, to suppress all discussion 
of this sin, all exhibition of its withering influence on human 
virtue and happiness. We have great national societies for 
disseminating Christian truth ; but no reader of their tracts and 
Sunday school books learns from their pages that it is sinful to 
rob black men of all their rights ; to compel them to labor with- 
out wages ; to deny them the Holy Scriptures ; and to send 
fathers, mothers, and children to market, like cattle and bales of 
cotton. All other sins are in these publications faithfully and 
freely rebuked ; but every allusion to this great and all-pervading 
sin of our nation is carefully excluded. Occasionally, a tract or 
religious biography from the other side of the water is deemed 
worthy of republication ; but it is first submitted to a process 
significantly termed " cottonizing," and which consists in care- 
fully expunging every expression condemnatory of human bond- 
age. The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, utterly 
repudiating such a time-serving view of Christian duty, aims at 
convincing the hearts and understandings of all, both at the 
North and at the South, of the sinfulness of American slavery. 
It must, however, be understood, that this Society directs its 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLA.VERY CHRISTIANS. 629 

labors to the abolition of caste as well as of slavery. "We 
have among ourselves a population, each individual of which is 
a swift witness of our cruelty and unchristian conduct. While 
protesting against the injustice and oppression practised by our 
southern brethren, let us not forget the deep guilt of our north- 
ern community in their treatment of the free people of color. 
No casuisty can reconcile the scorn and contumely poured upon 
these people with the precepts of the gospel of Christ ; of that 
gospel which makes love for each other the badge of the Re- 
deemer's disciples. It is unnecessary to dwell on the privations 
and disabilities to which our colored citizens are subjected. 
"When the professed ministers of Christ refuse to sit in the 
councils of the church with their reverend brethren not colored 
like themselves, and when colored candidates for the ministry 
are excluded from theological seminaries solely on account of 
the tincture of their skin, it is not surprising that others should 
be as regardless of the temporal, as certain of the clergy are of 
the spiritual welfare of men to whom God has been pleased to 
give a dark complexion. When the pious colored youth is 
denied the usual facilities for qualifying him to minister to the 
diseases of the souls of his people, who shall rigidly condemn 
the professors of the healing art for denying similar facilities 
for ministering to the diseases of the body, by excluding colored 
students from their lecture-rooms? Surely, the ruffians who 
insult and abuse the colored man, and the demagogues who, 
availing themselves of a popular prejudice, deny him equality 
before the law, have high examples to extenuate, if not to justify 
their pride and cruelty. In striving to secure to our colored 
people the rights freely accorded to all others, and thus giving 
them the means of maintaining themselves by honest industry, 
of developing and improving their talents, and of studying the 
things which belong to their peace, the Society is pursuing an 
object in perfect accordance with Christian benevolence, and 
one that must commend itself to every unprejudiced mind. 

In our opposition to slavery and caste, we desire to use no 
instruments of unsanctified temper ; nor have we any wish to 
conceal those we do use. Believing it sinful to compel an inno- 



G30 jay's works. 

cent man to serve as a slave, we must refuse to be partakers 
of other men's sins ; and hence, under no circumstances, can we 
aid in catching or securing fugitive slaves, whatever may be the 
penalties of our disobedience to a sinful act of Congress. It will 
be the endeavor of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety to dissuade all from joining in slave-hunts, as a palpable 
violation of Christian duty. Setting aside the moral turpitude 
of slavery, the fugitive slave act comprises a mass of iniquity in 
no degree required by the provisions of the Constitution. The 
act points out the mode of seizing and surrendering, not slaves, 
but persons owing service or labor, and is therefore applicable to 
white apprentices, and to persons under contract to labor for a 
limited time. Apprentices have already been surrendered under 
it, and there is no reason why others, who are alleged to have 
hired themselves out for a month or a year, may not be. To 
illustrate the intense injustice of this act, let us suppose a young 
man to leave his father's home, in Boston or New York, for 
California. After the lapse of a year or two, he returns. "While 
pursuing an honest calling, he is arrested in the street, on the 
charge of stealing — the stereotype charge in such cases, to pre- 
vent resistance — and hurried before a commissioner. An affi- 
davit made in California, and there certified by a judge, is read, 
setting forth that the prisoner is the apprentice of the deponent. 
Immediately, without being permitted to produce any testimony 
to rebut a document which the law declares shall be conclu- 
sive, he is put in irons, and sent on board a vessel departing for 
the Pacific, without being permitted to take leave of his parents, 
wife, or children. Do we revolt at the mere supposition of such 
barbarity ? But does the barbarity and injustice depend on the 
complexion of the victim ? That the Constitution requires the 
perpetration of such horrible outrages on justice and humanity, is 
denied even by Daniel "Webster, the great champion of the law 
since he proposed giving the accused the benefit of a trial by jury. 
We should be faithless to the cause not only of Christianity, but of 
civil liberty, did we not oppose an enactment so detestably atro- 
cious ; one which establishes a title to property in an intelligent, 
accountable, immortal being, on testimony which in no civilized 
country would support the claim to a dog. 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. G31 

The cruelty and heartlessness attending the execution of this 
law, the extraordinary zeal which our rich men and politicians 
manifest in its behalf, the sanction given to it by popular divines, 
and the infidel sneers which many of our party presses have 
deemed it expedient to cast on the advocates of a " higher law " 
than an act of Congress, have unitedly exerted a most disastrous 
influence on the tone of public morals. One of the most strik- 
ing instances of this influence is the vile attempt made in Penn- 
sylvania, under the especial countenance of the Federal Admin- 
istration, to convert resistance to the execution of the Fugitive 
Act into the capital crime of high treason. A fugitive, who had 
been arrested at Boston, was liberated by some of his colored 
friends, who, finding the door of his room in the court-house 
open, hustled the office]', and secured the escape of the intended 
victim. Not a weapon had been provided, not a wound was 
given ; yet the rescue was boldly proclaimed by Mr. "Webster, 
Secretary of State, to be an act of treason, a levying of war 
against the United States ! 

On the 11th of September, 1851, a more serious affair occurred. 
An armed party, headed by a deputy-marshal, attempted to 
arrest some fugitive slaves in Pennsylvania. The fugitives, aided 
by some others, stood on their defence. The claimant, a Mary- 
land slave-holder, was shot in the affray, and the fugitives 
escaped. Five days after, the Governor of Maryland was 
officially informed, from the " Department of State," that " the 
District Attorney was especially instructed to ascertain whether 
the facts would make out the crime of treason against the 
United States, and, if so, to take prompt measures to secure all 
concerned for trial for that offence." Faithfully and zealously 
were the orders from Washington obeyed. Incredible as it may 
seem, a grand jury was found with consciences sufficiently pliant 
to present no less than seventy-eight indictments against thirty- 
nine persons, alleged to have been concerned in the riot. All 
were indicted for treason, as well as for various crimes of in- 
ferior grade. 

Let it be recollected that the Constitution, to prevent tyran- 
nical prosecutions for constructive treason, declares : " Treason 



632 jay's works. 

against the United States shall consist only in levying war 
against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid 
and comfort." It may well he supposed that the Government 
selected for the commencement of the prosecutions the strongest 
case of the thirty-nine. On the 25th of November, Castner 
Hanway, a white man of irreproachable character, was placed 
at the bar, charged, on the oaths of the grand jury, that on the 
11th of September, 1851, "he did wickedly and traitor- 
ously LEVY WAR AGAINST THE UNITED STATES." The Only 

offence proved against him was, that he was near the scene of 
action, unarmed, and on horseback, and that, when ordered by 
the deputy-marshal to aid him in capturing the fugitives, like 
an honest man, he declined rendering the required assistance. 
The presiding judge charged the jury that "The Court feel 
bound to say, that they do not think the transaction with which 
the prisoner is charged with being connected, rises to the dignity 
of treason or of levying war ; " and a verdict of not guilty was 
returned without hesitation. This verdict led the Government 
to abandon all the indictments for treason, among which was 
one against Samuel Williams, a colored man, for levying war 
against the United States, by giving notice to the fugitives that 
a warrant had been issued for their arrest! But still an effort 
was made to punish him for this act of benevolence, and he was 
tried on an indictment for misdemeanor, under the Fugitive Act, 
for obstructing the arrest by his notice, and for which, if con- 
victed, he was liable to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, 
and imprisonment not exceeding six months. The trial by jury 
was again vindicated by a verdict of accpiital. All the prosecu- 
tions were then abandoned in despair ; and if the gallows and 
the prisons were denied their intended victims, the Government 
could at least beseech the slave-holders to accept the will for 
the deed, especially as it is said no less than seventy thousand 
dollars were expended on these prosecutions from the public 
treasury. 

In connection with the Fugitive Act, we ask your attention to 
the renewed efforts to transport the free people of color to Africa. 
We freely acknowledge not only the right of these people to 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. 633 

seek a more favorable home than this country affords, but also 
the right and duty of others to afford them, according to circum- 
stances, the aid they may desire for this purpose. But the 
American Colonization Society proffers them unclesired aid, and 
recommends their removal to Africa, as rendering slavery more 
secure and more profitable, and relieving the country of a popu- 
lation which it represents as a "nuisance." To induce them to 
accept the proffered aid, the oppressions they here suffer are 
excused and often justified, while attempts to render their con- 
dition here more tolerable, by promoting their intellectual im- 
provement and enlarging the field of their industry, are discoun 
tenanced. In short, the whole tendency of the Society is, by 
rendering their condition here intolerable, to extort their consent 
to go to Africa. We all know the extreme anxiety of the slave- 
holders to expel the free blacks from within their borders. Says 
a late South Carolina paper,* recommending the State "to ship 
her free negroes to another land," " The very condition and the 
circumstances that surround the free negro are in direct hostility 
and diametrically opposed to the institution of slavery." Mr. 
Webster, in his memorable speech of 7th March, 1850, adroitly 
recommended himself to his new patrons by declaring that 
eighty millions had been received from the sale of lands 
ceded by Virginia ; and that, " If Virginia and the South see fit 
to adopt any proposition to relieve themselves from the free 
people of color among them, they have my free consent that the 
Government shall pay them any sum of money out of the pro- 
ceeds which may be adecpiate for the purpose." And again : 
"If any gentleman from the South shall propose a scheme of 
colonization to be carried on by this Government upon a large 
scale, for the transportation of her colored people to any colony 
or any place in the world, I should be quite disposed to incur 
almost any degree of expense to accomplish the object." Of 
course, the Secretary of State is willing to tax the whole repub- 
lic to any amount not exceeding eighty millions, not to benefit 
the free people of color, not to civilize and Christianize Africa, 
but to banish to any part of the world hundreds of thousands of 

* Greenfield Mountaineer. 
54 






634 jay's works. 

his own countrymen, solely and avowedly to relieve the slave- 
holders, and give additional security and permanence to the 
system of human bondage ; and this gentleman is now the pub- 
lic champion of the American Colonization Society. Hence a 
sense of Christian duty will forbid the American and Foreign 
Anti-Slavery Society from holding any relation to that Society 
other than that of uncompromising hostility. 

"We have in our country a population, free and bond, of be- 
tween three and four millions, who, merely on account of their 
complexion, are treated with an almost total disregard of that 
justice and humanity enjoined by the religion we profess. The 
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society are laboring to 
secure to them that Christian treatment to which the gospel of 
Christ entitles them. In this work of mercy, they invoke, and 
have a right to invoke, the countenance and aid of the Church. 
We are not unconscious that the Church has, in past ages, been 
frequently faithless to her high mission of cultivating peace and 
good-will among men ; and he is but little acquainted with pass- 
ins; events who is ignorant that the American Church is at this 
moment one of the strongest buttresses of American caste and 
slavery. Would we, then, if we could, destroy the Church ? 
God forbid. If the world is so full of sin and wretchedness 
notwithstanding the Church, what would it be without a Church ? 
The answer may be found in the cruelties and abominations of 
paganism. But the ministers of Christ are men of like passions 
with others, and liable, like others, to be swayed by popular 
opinion and motives of self-interest. It is possible many of the 
clergy have not reflected that, in supporting and vindicating 
slavery, they are lending their countenance to an institution 
which outrages every moral precept they inculcate from the pul- 
pit. What answer will the northern clerical slave-catcher, or the 
southern reverend slave-breeder and slave-trader return to the 
inspired question, " He that loveth not his brother whom he hath 
seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen ? " Surely 
it is worthy of remembrance that, at the day of final account, 
the Judge will consider as done to himself both the kindness and 
the cruelty shown to the least of his brethren. 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. 635 

We are constantly reminded that the Church is the great 
instrument of moral reform. Most gratefully do we allow that 
the precepts of the gospel are sufficient for all the moral necessi- 
ties of man. " Do to others as you would they should do unto 
you, is a law which if obeyed, would of itself banish slavery and 
oppression from the face of the earth. But unhappily the 
Church, or at least a portion of her ministers, have not always 
applied the precepts of the gospel to existing and popular sins. 
It is certainly no exaggerated statement, that not one sermon in 
a thousand delivered at the North contains the slightest allusion 
to the duties of Christians towards the colored population ; while 
at the South multitudes of the clergy are as deeply involved in 
the iniquities of slavery as their hearers. It is no libel on the 
great body of our northern clergy to say that, in regard to the 
wrongs of the colored people, instead of performing the part of 
the good Samaritan, their highest merit consists in following the 
example of the priest and Levite, and passing by on the other 
side, without inflicting new injuries on their wounded brother. 
But we rejoice to know that there are ministers of Christ among 
us, and not a few, to whom these remarks are wholly inapplica- 
ble ; men who pray and preach and labor against slavery and 
caste, and thus adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour. We 
rejoice also to know that such ministers are appreciated and 
honored by Christians abroad of every name. The clergy of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland decline admitting into their 
pulpits clergymen from this country holding what they deem 
heretical doctrines ; but can they exclude any for a fouler heresy 
than that which abrogates all the Christian precepts of justice 
and mercy in their application to colored men ? We trust our 
friends in Great Britain will not weaken our hands, and 
strengthen the pro-slavery influence of our churches, by over-, 
looking, in their reception of American clergymen, the course 
they have pursued at home on the subject of slavery. They 
may be perfectly assured that the American clergyman, who, 
abroad, is too dignified to be questioned as to his opinions on 
human bondage, is at home too patriotic to offer any vigorous 
opposition to the " peculiar institution " of his country. 



G3 6 jay's works. 

"We have thus frankly stated the objects of the American and 
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and confidently ask if they are 
not objects worthy to be pursued by rational, accountable Chris- 
tian men ? Nay, we go farther, and ask, has not a Society pur- 
suing such objects valid claims on the countenance and generous 
aid of every philanthropist and every Christian in our country ? 
Hostility to slavery has frequently been associated with 
various objects of political and moral reform. It is natural it 
should be so, since the same love for our neighbor which revolts 
at his oppression seeks to advance his general welfare. But 
experience has fully proved that associated action cannot be 
efficiently maintained in behalf of various plans, respecting 
which the individuals associated entertain diverse opinions. 
Hence the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, with- 
out passing any judgment on other proposed reforms, confine 
their efforts in their associated capacity to the abolition of caste 
and slavery, leaving to their members individually the full and 
entire liberty of advocating and promoting, in such way as they 
may think proper, any other reforms, moral or political. We 
believe every man is bound to exercise the elective franchise in 
the fear of God ; but while we shall ever rejoice in the election 
of virtuous rulers who will do justice and love mercy, it is not 
the province of the Society to recommend particular individuals 
for the suffrages of their fellow-citizens. 

It is consoling to us to know that, in the sentiments we have 
expressed, we enjoy the sympathy of almost all without the 
limits of our own country who bear the Christian name. A 
vast multitude on our own soil Iwld the same sentiments, and, 
did they act with one heart and one voice, would soon triumph 
over the prejudice which supports caste, would array the 
Church on the side of mercy, and rescue the Federal Govern- 
ment from its unholy and unconstitutional alliance with slavery. 
But unfortunately, the sympathies of this multitude, not being 
concentrated in action and counsel, are in no small degree 
powerless for good. The anti-slavery host has been divided, 
and of course enfeebled, by conflicting opinions on topics not 
immediately affecting the colored man. For the sake of the 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. 637 

slave, for the prosperity of the country, for the good of the 
Church herself, we earnestly desire the union of all abolitionists, 
and their harmonious action in behalf of their colored brethren. 
We ask all who approve the opinions we have expressed to 
give vitality and energy to those opinions, by aiding the Ameri- 
can and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in disseminating and 
enforcing them. 

Public opinion is in this country the controller of legislation. 
Hence, at one period a traffic in African savages was encour- 
aged by law, as an enlightened and legitimate commerce. At a 
later period, all but two States were desirous to abandon it, 
and, as a compromise, Congress was restricted from abolishing 
it until after twenty years. At a still later period, a commerce 
which had been guaranteed by the Federal Constitution was, by 
an act of Congress, denounced as piracy. Public opinion now, 
acting through the legislature, holds him a felon who brings to 
our shores for sale a native African, while we have just seen a 
citizen tried for his life because he declined to assist a slave- 
catcher in reducing to slavery a native American. To buy and 
sell Africans is wicked, base, and detestable ; to buy and sell 
colored Americans is in perfect accordance with the most ex- 
alted position in both State and Church. In the city of New 
York, we have seen " men of great stakes," merchant princes, 
and others, lavishing courtesies on the most reckless and violent 
champions of slavery when they honored them with their 
presence ; and we have seen these same gentlemen giving aid 
and comfort to the slave-cateher, without losing their place in 
polite society. 

Most certainly public opinion on these subjects is unsound, 
and ought to be reformed. Very many of our clergy, and their 
hearers, need to be reminded that the commands of God have 
no reference to the color of a man's skin, but that all are equally 
entitled to receive, and are equally bound to render, the justice 
and benevolence enjoined by Him who is the common Father of 
us all. Christians generally are to be warned not to be par- 
takers of other men's sins towards the colored race. The 

54* 



C38 jay's works. 

cruelty of State and Federal legislation is to be exposed ; the 
influence of the colonization scheme in exasperating the 
prejudice against our colored brethren is to be demonstrated, 
and the public is to be fully instructed in the moral, social, and 
political evils resulting from slavery and caste. 

But how are these great ends to be accomplished ? Individu- 
al effort can do but little. In the present age, the press is the 
great lever by which the world is moved, but it can be 
employed to a great extent only through the united pecuniary 
contributions of many. The influence of a private abolitionist 
can rarely reach beyond a contracted neighborhood ; but as a 
member of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 
and a donor to its funds, he may address thousands. The 
National Era was established at Washington with funds 
supplied by the Society, and since repaid ; and it now weekly 
addresses anti-slavery truth to seventeen thousand subscribers. 
The Society greatly needs a periodical of its own, but its present 
funds are insufficient for the establishment of one. Treatises 
on various branches of this great subject are constantly offered 
to the Society, but it lacks the means of giving them to the 
public through the press. Intelligent, Avell-informed lecturers 
are wanted to awaken public attention, to collect popular assem- 
blies, and to enlist the sympathies of those whose avocations 
deny them the opportunity of reading anti-slavery publications. 
Agents are desired to aid in the formation of auxiliary societies. 
Editors and authors are to be enlisted in the cause ; and fre- 
quently information and statistics, to be collected at much 
expense of time and labor, are needed for the use of members of 
Congress and other public men. The instrumentalities for in- 
fluencing public opinion and correcting prejudices and erroneous 
statements are manifold, but they can be wielded only by asso- 
ciated funds and labors. 

A crisis has arrived in which the friends of the anti-slavery 
cause should reorganize and act together. Unless they do this, 
their efforts to circumscribe the area of slavery, to break the 
fetters of the slave, and to rescue the free colored man from his 



ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY CHRISTIANS. 639 

present degradation, will be fruitless. Should the present 
mighty combination of capitalists, merchants, and politicians, 
aided by a number of popular divines enlisted in their service, 
succeed in suppressing all manifestation of sympathy for the 
slave, all discussion of the abominations of slavery, all compas- 
sion for the fugitive, the North will undoubtedly be prepared to 
sanction the designs now entertained for the erection of New 
Mexico, Utah, and Southern California into slave States, to- 
gether with the annexation of Cuba, Hayti, and the Sandwich 
Islands, all to be added to the domain of the slave-holder. Let 
us never forget that duties are ours, although events are not, 
and that whatever may be the form in which it may please 
Divine Providence to punish our guilty land, he requires us not 
only to love mercy, but to do justice ; a command we fail to 
obey, so long as we refuse to use lawful means to secure mercy 
and justice to others. Very many have no other opportunity of 
obeying this command, in regard to the colored race, than by 
their pecuniary contributions to the anti-slavery cause. The 
efforts of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society are 
now enfeebled by the exhausted state of their treasury. 

Friends and brethren, we appeal to you in behalf of the 
Society. In the language of Scripture, we exhort you to show 
your faith by your works. So fully aware are our enemies of 
the importance of influencing public opinion by the press, that a 
paper has been established at the capital of our Eepublic for 
the single and avowed purpose of vindicating and upholding 
human bondage. A large portion of the newspaper press in our 
commercial cities is enlisted in the same unholy cause. Public 
rumor tells us, that a committee in the city of New York, com- 
prising many of its wealthiest citizens, raised a fund of one 
hundred thousand dollars ; and knowing that opposition to 
slavery has its strongest fortress in the religious sentiment, this 
committee has spread broadcast through the land multitudes of 
copies of pro-slavery sermons. While the votaries of Mammon 
and the aspirants to political power and emolument are thus 
active and zealous in supporting and extending a horrible and 



640 jay's works. 

degrading despotism, to further their own selfish and ambitious 
views, will not the friends of righteousness, justice, and mercy, 
be up and doing ? "We beseech you to reply by enrolling your 
names among the members of the American and Foreign Anti- 
Slavery Society, and by speedy and liberal contributions to its 
treasury. 



LETTER 



TO REV. R. S. COOK, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF 
THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



New York, Monday, Feb. 14, 1853. 

Reverend Sir : I have been favored with your letter of 
the last month, setting forth the pecuniary exigencies of the 
American Tract Society, and suggesting to my " charitable con- 
sideration " a donation to its funds. Few persons hailed with 
more satisfaction than myself the establishment of your Society, or 
more cordially approved the truly catholic principles on which it 
was founded. I long since became one of its ' Life Directors,' 
and have frequently contributed to its funds. The professed 
object of the Society was to inculcate Christian faith and prac- 
tice, and to a very great extent it has been faithful to its profes- 
sion, and I doubt not that it has been largely instrumental in 
promoting the spiritual welfare of multitudes. 

But the good effected by human agency is seldom without 
alloy, and for some years, painful doubts have intruded them- 
selves on my mind as to the propriety of the course pursued by 
the Society in regard to a most momentous subject. Against 
these doubts I have long struggled, and at times with success. 
But they have again and again returned with increased force, 



642 jay's works. 

and they have been so entirely confirmed by some recent devel- 
opments, that I am constrained to return a most reluctant denial 
to the application in your letter. I am well aware of the deep 
responsibility I assume in placing any obstacle, however slight, 
in the way of the Society. Of this responsibility, the pain I 
may give valued friends, and the obloquy I may draw upon my- 
self from a very minor portion — I feel the infinitely greater 
weight of my responsibility to my Maker, for withholding my 
aid from an agency that has effected so much for his glory and 
the good of man. This responsibility I have anxiously pondered, 
and have come to the conviction that I may not avoid it. The 
facts and reasons which have produced this conviction I will 
proceed to state. Should they be found insufficient to justify me, 
they will tend to save others from the error into which I have 
fallen ; and should they, on the other hand, be found valid, they 
may lead to salutary results. 

The classification of sins into those of commission and omis- 
sion is trite. All Scripture testifies that mere inaction has often 
incurred the divine wrath. The Jewish priests, although sedu- 
lous in the routine of ceremonial duties, were denounced, in the 
indignant language of inspiration, as " dumb dogs," because 
they omitted to rebuke popular sins. In the account of the last 
judgment, those who are to "go away into everlasting punish- 
ment " are not condemned as heretics, nor as the perpetrators of 
crime, but as guilty of having omitted to administer to the neces- 
sities of Christ's afflicted and oppressed brethren. 

You have by this time, sir, anticipated that my charge against 
the Society is one of omission. There is a giant, and in its 
influence an all-pervading sin, in our land — a sin which is de- 
stroying the peace and happiness of millions, both for the life 
that is, and for that which is to come ; and which is hardening 
the hearts and paralyzing the consciences of many more by its 
reflective consequences. Yet the American Tract Society has 
publicly and officially announced through you, as its organ, that 
it does not intend to recognize even the existence of this sin ! 

About a year since the ministers and delegates of the Con- 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 643 

gregational Union of Fox River, Illinois, addressed a very 
Christian letter to the Society. In this letter they very forcibly 
remark : 

" We feel sure that the time has come when the continued absence 
from the publications of your Society of all that relates to slavery, will 
be significant ; that silence can no longer be neutrality or indifference ; 
and that a tract literature which speaks less plainly of slavery than of 
other specific evils, will conduce to a defective, partial and unsound 
morality." 

In your official reply of 27th February, 1852, without letting 
a word escape your pen, acknowledging the sinfulness of Amer- 
ican slavery, you urge various reasons for not breaking the silence 
so long observed by the Society respecting human bondage. 

" It would seem a sacrifice of a greater to a lesser good, to engage in 
the discussion of a topic already exhausted, with the likelihood of sat- 
isfying none, and with the certainty of alienating multitudes of our best 
friends," &c. 

Your publications, we are informed, must be of a character 
" calculated to meet the approbation of all evangelical Chris- 
tians ;" and you seem to think that, amid the anti-slavery 
agitation, it is desirable " that at least one institution should 
move forward on the simple errand that brought the Saviour 
into the world — proclaiming Christ and him crucified," &c. ; 
and you aver "that on no subject, probably, are evangelical 
Christians more at variance " than on slavery ; and you con- 
clude with declaring that " the course of duty seems plain before 
us to adhere as a society to the simple gospel in its essential 
saving truths." The Union w r ere not convinced by your argu- 
ments ; on the contrary, they resolved that ere long no catholic 
society of publication can well refuse to express anti-slavery 
truth in some of its various forms of moral or Biblical argument, 
fact or sentiment ; and to hasten this desired consummation, they 
ordered the correspondence to be made public. 

I am unable to reconcile the position assumed in your letter 
with the past action of the Society, or with the usually received 
ideas of Christian obligation. It seems your tracts must meet 



G44 jay's works. 

the approbation of all evangelical Christians. If we ask who 
these are, we shall be told, such as agree in maintaining the 
Scriptural authority of certain abstract doctrines. But we all 
know, that these same Christians differ widely on various ques- 
tions of moral practice. You are not ignorant that evangelical 
wine and rumsellers, and drinkers, abound both in town and 
country ; and yet your Society is lavish of its censures on them. 
It condemns the theatre and race-course, although not a few be- 
lievers in the evangelical creed frequent both. You issue pub- 
lications against dancing, and yet how many sons and daughters 
mingle in the waltz, in the presence and with the consent of 
their evangelical parents. You condemn travelling on the Sab- 
bath, yet our Sunday steamboats and rail-cars are not without 
their evangelical passengers. You do not hesitate to rebuke 
gambling, yet evangelicals may be found at the card and the 
billiard-table. As far as I can judge, the publications of your 
Society have been in accordance with the rule you announce on 
few subjects, except that of human bondage and its attendant 
atrocities. I know not that in the twenty-seven years of its ex- 
istence the Society has published a line intended to touch the 
conscience of an American slave-breeder or trader. On the 
contrary, especial care has been taken to expunge from your 
reprints every expression that could even imply a censure on 
our stupendous national iniquity. The Society has no hesitation 
in condemning cruelty, oppression, and injustice, but it shrinks 
with affright at the very idea of acknowledging that it is cruel, 
oppressive and unjust to reduce a black man to the condition of 
a beast of burden, to deny him legal marriage, and to sell him 
and his children to the highest bidder, in company with the 
beasts of the field. This extreme sensitiveness is shown in the 
alteration of a passage in your reprint of Gurney's essay on the 
habitual exercise of love to God. Gurney says : 

"If this love had always prevailed among professing Christians, 
where would have been "the sword of the crusader ? "Where the 
African slave-trade ? Where the odious system which permits to man 
a property in his fellow-men, and converts rational beings into market- 
able chattels ? " Pane 142. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 645 

This was meat too strong for the digestion of the Society, and 
hence it was carefully diluted; so that it might be swallowed 
without producing the slightest nausea, as follows : 

"If this love had always prevailed among professing Christians, 
where would have been the sword of the crusader ? Where the tortures 
of the Inquisition? "Where every system of oppression and wrong by 
which he who has the power revels in luxury and ease at the expense 
of his fellow-men ? " Page 199. 

It was an ingenious thought to turn upon the Inquisition Gur- 
ney's application of his subject to slave-traders and holders, and 
to lose sight of property in man, in indefinite generalities. 

Your last report, in announcing the reprint of the memoir of 
Mary Lundie Duncan, tells us : 

" A few pages, which the Committee deemed of less interest to the 
general reader, or which alluded to points of disagreement among evan- 
gelical Christians, have been dropped." 

The pages dropped are indeed few and unimportant, and 
seemed to have been dropped for the purpose of justifying the 
word " abridged " on the title-page. But the passages dropped 
are very significant. In her diary for March 22, 1833, the fol- 
lowing passage is expunged in the Society's edition, while every 
other word on the page is retained. 

" "We have been lately much interested in the emancipation of slaves. 
I never heard eloquence more overpowering than that of George 
Thompson. I am most thankful that he has been raised up. O that 
the measure soon to be proposed in Parliament may be effectual." 

Poor Mary ! The American Tract Society will not allow you 
to breathe a wish for West India emancipation by act of Par- 
liament, nor to admire the elocpience of an anti-slavery lecturer. 
The biographer of this lovely and highly gifted saint remarks : 

" When George Thompson, the eloquent pleader for the abolition of 
slavery, was called to visit the United States in the hope that his re- 
markable power of influencing the public mind might be beneficial there, 
we find the youthful philanthropist, whose ardent mind glowed with 
exalted sympathies, and felt an interest in loftier occupations than 
usually kindle the enthusiasm of girls of her age, embodying her de- 
sires for his success, in the following verses." 

55 



646 jay's works. 

This paragraph and the lines they introduced are both ex- 
punged from your edition. A Broadway bookseller had already 
published an unmutilated copy of the book, but this religious 
society, more sensitive than even New York traffic to the good 
will of the slave-holders, suppressed not merely the anti-slavery 
poetry, but the testimony of a mother to the philanthropic sen- 
timents of her departed daughter ! But the work of expurgation 
did not stop here. In Mary's diary is the following entry : 

"August 1. Freedom has dawned this morning on the British Col- 
onies. (No more degraded lower than die brutes — no more bowed doion 
with suffering from icliich there is no redress) the sons of Africa have 
obtained the rights of fellow-subjects — the rights of man, the immortal 
creation of God. (Now they may seek the sanctuary fearless of the 
lash — they may call their children their oiun.) Hope will animate their 
hearts and give vigor to their efforts. Oh, for more holy men to show 
them the way of salvation ! The Lord keep them from riot and idle- 
ness. They have been so little taught that He only can avert confusion 
and tumult as the result of their joy. Some Christians there are 
among their number, who will influence others. My poor fellow trav- 
ellers through life's short wilderness, may I meet with many of you in 
heaven, where even I can hope to dwell through the love of my risen 
Lord ! There none will despise the negro whom Jesus Christ hath 
pitied and redeemed." 

The passages in italics and in parentheses are expunged in the 
Society's edition. Mary is permitted to announce that the ne- 
groes have become British subjects, to express her apprehensions 
of riot and idleness, confusion and tumult, as consequences 
of emancipation, and to indulge the hope of meeting negroes in 
heaven, where they will not be despised. But she is not per- 
mitted to allude to the cruelties and abominations to which these 
same negroes had been subjected. The expunged passages in- 
volve no doctrinal " points of disagreement among evangelical 
Christians." Why then were they stricken out? Because the 
same cruelties and enormities to which she alluded, are perpe- 
trated at home by evangelical Christians who belong to and sup- 
port the American Tract Society. 

The Society will not venture the denial of the truth of the 
expunged assertions. It would surely not aver that American 
slave children do belong to their parents. It would be put to 
confusion by the solemn judicial affirmance of the validity of a 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 647 

bequest of a mother to one person, and of her unborn children 
to another. It would be confuted by the sale of children at 
auction, and in particular of a sale reported within the few last 
days, of a child three years old bringing three hundred dollars 
under the hammer, while a southern paper adverts with pride 
to the price of human flesh, as evidence of " our agricultural 
prosperity." Your Society, sir, expunged Mary's assertions, 
not because they were untrue, but because they are now as true 
here as they were in the West Indies, and it is the policy of the 
Society to cover up and conceal whatever reflects odium on the 
" peculiar institution." 

Your Committee tell us in their last Report that they " have 
never lost sight of their responsibilities to those of tender 
years ; " and it seems they issue The Child's Paper, of which 
great numbers are circulated. Yet the responsibilities to chil- 
dren resting on the Committee permit them to expunge an 
expression likely to remind us that there are hundreds of thou- 
sands of children in our land who are mere articles of mer- 
chandise. These very responsibilities are, it seems, perfectly 
compatible with entire silence respecting the ignorance and 
degradation of this great multitude "of tender years." The 
Committee know that in some of our States even a free mother, 
if her complexion be dark, is, by law, liable to be scourged on 
her bare back should she be taught teaching her little ones to 
read your Child's Paper, yet not a word of remonstrance 
escapes the American Tract Society ! In the very last number 
of The Child's Paper I read that 

" There are between 10,000 and 12,000 children in the City of New 
York who never enter a church or school, and who cannot read the 

Bible Here are heathen at home ; what is doing 

for them ? These children must be cared for." 

Indeed ! And is it nothing to your Society that there are in 
our country about half a million of little black heathen who 
are prevented by law from reading the Bible ? These little 
heathen have souls as imperishable, destinies as momentous, as 
the white heathen in New York. Must this half million be 
cared for ? Ah ! that is a " point of disagreement among evan- 



648 jay's works. 

gelical Christians," and hence the Society must not even recog- 
nize the existence of children who do not belong to their parents. 
Permit me now to ask your attention to the very different 
course pursued by the Society in regard to the traffic in the 
bones and sinews, the mind and soul of immortal man, and the 
traffic in intoxicating drinks. Between twenty and thirty of 
your tracts are devoted to the subject of intemperance in all 
its relations. It is curious to obseiwe the desire of your writers 
to avail themselves of the arguments and illustrations furnished 
by slavery, and at the same time their extreme caution in 
avoiding all reference to American slavery. "Where even by 
implication, censure is cast on human bondage, it is human 
bondage in other countries than our own. In Tract No. 300, to 
the excuse of the distiller, that he cannot sacrifice his property, 
conscience is made to answer : 

" Suppose you were now in B?-azil and the owner of a large estab- 
lishment to 'fit out slave-traders with handcuffs for the coast of Africa, 
and could not change your business without considerable pecuniary 
sacrifice, would you make the sacrifice, or would you keep your fires 
and hammers going ? " 

In remonstrating against the cruelty of the traffic in rum, it 
is remarked : 

" If a man lives only to make a descent on the peaceful abodes of 
Africa, and to tear away parents from their weeping children, and 
husbands from their wives and homes, where is the man that will deem 
this a moral business ? " " Other men will prey on unoffending 
Africa and bear human sinews across the ocean to be sold. Have you 
a right to do it ? " No. 305. 

Once more, speaking of the duty of rescuing the drunkard, 
it is asked : 

" What would you not do to pull a neighbor out of the water, or out 
of the fire, or to deliver him from Algerine captivity ? " No. 422. 

So it seems the Society is at liberty to hold up as cruel and 
immoral the traffic in human flesh in Africa, Brazil, and Al- 
giers, but not in our own land — that being a "point of disa- 
greement among evangelical Christians." 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 649 

And now, sir, I ask you, on what evangelical principle does 
the Society condemn the foreign slave-trade ? Is it because an 
act of Congress forbids it ? The Society has not yet, I believe, 
like some of its patrons, elevated the lower above the higher 
law, and made the national statute book the standard of right 
and wrong. Nor, indeed, can the advocates of the supremacy 
of the lower law maintain, that an act of Congress can render 
immoral the conduct of Africans, Algerines and Brazilians, 
when that conduct is in conformity with the laws of their 
respective countries. Is it then, in reference to the higher law, 
the will of God l'evealed in his blessed gospel, that the foreign 
traffic is condemned ? If so, then I ask to what divine precept 
is it opposed ? Buying and selling and the exchange of com- 
modities are essential to human society, and are nowhere con- 
demned in God's word. Why then, sir, I ask in all seriousness 
is it more immoral for an African to sell, or a Brazilian to buy 
men and women, than apes and parrots ? Is it because men and 
women are not by the higher law subjects of commerce? Be- 
fore you reply in the affirmative, remember that our laws, 
framed for the most part by evangelical Christians, expressly 
declare vast multitudes of men and woinen to be mere chattels, 
vendible articles. Said Henry Clay, on the floor of the Senate, 
vindicating property in man, " that is property which the law 
makes property." Now, every slave sold in Africa to a Brazil- 
ian merchant, is property by the African law, and is granted, 
bargained, sold, and delivered by a title as valid as that ever 
received by Mr. Clay to one of his slaves. Again, then, I ask, 
why is the sale and purchase of a man in Africa, most undoubt- 
edly a heinous crime, while the immorality of the sale and pur- 
chase in Virginia of a fellow countryman and perhaps a fellow 
. Christian, is such an abstruse cmestion, that the American Tract 
.Society will not venture to approach its discussion ? Can it be 
that your Society is silent on this traffic, because it is sanctioned 
by human law ? This can hardly be, since the Society is 
unsparing in its denunciations of the traffic in rum, notwith- 
standing the powers that be, ordained as they are of God, have 

55* 



650 jay's works. 

taken the traffic under their peculiar guardianship. Very irrev- 
erently does your tract speak of 

" Stale debauch forth issuing from the sties 
That law has licensed." No. 240. 

You are silent on slavery because, as you say, on no other 
subject probably " are evangelical Christians more at variance." 
I think, sir, you greatly overrate the evangelical patrons and 
advocates of slavery. I doubt whether you can find one 
hundred evangelical Christians out of the slave States, uncon- 
nected in any way with slavery, slave-holders, and cotton, who 
will publicly avow that American slavery is a righteous institu- 
tion, and the slave code in accordance with the spirit and pre- 
cepts of the gospel of Christ. Surely, surely, sir, I should make 
a most extravagant and reckless estimate were I to compute the 
evangelical champions of slave-breeding, slave-trading, and 
slave-catching, at a tythe of the evangelicals who in their 
practice repudiate total abstinence from intoxicating drinks. 
Nevertheless, on this last " point of evangelical disagreement," 
the Society expresses itself without fear and without reserve. 

But some of our friends, you may say, insist that the Bible 
sanctions slavery, and what can we do ? And some of your 
friends also insist that the Bible sanctions moderate drinking, 
and the sale of intoxicating drinks, and what do you do ? Why, 
you tell us 

" The great laws of morals are indeed unchanged, but the degrees of 
light and knowledge which men possess may be very different. We 
should not deem it right to apply our laws and knowledge in judging 
of the laws of Sparta which authorized theft — nor our views of the 
marriage relation, to condemn the conduct of Abi'aham, David and 
Jacob. Man's conduct is to be estimated by the light he has." 

To the plea that the Bible does not prohibit the traffic it is 
answered : 

" Where is there a formal prohibition of piracy, or bigamy, or kid- 
napping, or suicide, or duelling, or the sale of obscene books and 
paintings? . . . The truth is, that the Bible has laid down great 
principles of conduct, which on all these subjects could be easily 
applied, which are applied, and which under the guidance of equal 
honesty may be as easily applied to the subject of which I am speak- 
ing." No. 305. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 651 

To assail slavery is to assail its supporters, and you think 
that the Society, by discussing the subject, would alienate mul- 
titudes of its best friends. Similar delicacy, or, if you please, 
prudence has not been observed towards the advocates of 
moderate drinking. 

" Our next opposition is from a band clothed in white. — professors 
of our holy religion — enlisted soldiers of the Church, engaged to 
every good work of benevolence : they come to intercede for the 
monster, (moderate drinking,) and oppose our enterprise. What 
can be the meaning of this ? O, where lies this astonishing witchery ? 
What has put the Church to sleep ? What has made her angry 
at the call to come forth from the embrace of her deadliest foe ? " No. 
240. 

Were the inquiry made, what witchery has made the Church 
blind, and deaf and dumb, in regard to the groans and sufferings 
of millions on our soil denied the word of God, and forcibly 
kept in ignorance and degradation ? — the true answer would 
be. I am persuaded, " The neutrality of the American Tract 
Society, and the vast number of the clergy, to whom the fear of 
man has proved a snare." 

Very strange is it that while the Society will not even hint 
dislike to slavery, it brings against the traffic in rum an array 
of arguments equally effective and valid against the traffic in 
men, women and children. Thus you urge the duty of doing as 
you would be done by, and the remorse we shall feel at death 
for the suffering we have inflicted, and the great command 
to love our neighbor (No. 242) — our responsibility to God for 
the results of our own selfishness (No. 300) — the waste of 
human happiness (No. 240) — that the traffic "tears asunder 
the strongest bonds of society, it severs the tenderest ties of 
nature" (No. 249). To the plea of the rumseller that his 
trade is his livelihood, it is answered, " beg, dig, do anything, 
but this. It would be a glorious martyrdom to starve, con- 
trasted with obtaining a livelihood by such an employment" 
(No. 305). " Where have you derived authority to procure a 
living at a sacrifice of conscience, cheracter and the dearest in- 
terests of others ? " (No. 239.) 

The Society shrinks from the opposition it would encounter 



652 jay's works. 

from slave-holders. In your letter already quoted, you vindi- 
cate " the peaceful course pursued by the Society," and you 
say 

" When there shall be unity of sentiment, and a treatise of standard 
value shall be written, such as the Committee can approve, then there 
will be propriety in claiming that a Tract press shall engage in this 
branch of moral discussion." 

Unless I mistake your meaning, there is here an implied 
promise, that when all evangelical Christians are united in con- 
demning slavery, both in theory and practice, and when of course 
the monster is at his last gasp, and there is no use in striking 
another blow, then the Society will attack him, provided the 
Committee shall cordially agree as to the weapon to be used. 
In the meantime, while the monster is in full vigor and extend- 
ing his ravages, you think it best, " that at least one institution 
should move forward on the simple errand that brought the 
Saviour into the world — proclaiming Christ and him crucified,'' 
&c. Happy is it, sir, that this desire for peace, this longing to 
proclaim Christ and him crucified, without heeding popular and 
prevailing sins, was not felt by the Society till after it had done 
battle against gamblers, dancers, theatre-goers, Sabbath-break- 
ers, moderate drinkers, and rumsellers. Your tracts against 
intemperance display anything but a non-resistant spirit. For 
example — 

"The demon will daunt the timid. It is noisy and fiery; attack it, 
and it will roll its eyes and snap its teeth, and threaten vengeance. 
Attempt to starve it, and it will rage like the famished tiger. Thou- 
sands have fed it against their consciences rather than meet its fury. 
But fear not. Be firm — be decided — be courageous, connect your 
cause with Heaven. It is the cause of God, the cause for which 
Immanuel died. Let the demon no longer hide in the sanctuary. Expel 
forever the accursed enemy, that the Lord may bless us with life and 
peace." No. 240. 

Possibly the Society has deemed it its duty to cooperate with 
Union Saving Committees and Baltimore politicians, and cotton 
merchants, in their patriotic efforts to suppress all discussion of 
the " delicate subject," a discussion having such disturbing in- 
fluences on northern trade and politics. Yet such a supposition 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 658 

cannot be allowed, after the noble testimony borne by the 
Society to the right and benefit of free discussion. 

" There are some great principles in regard to our country which are 
settled, and which are never to be violated so long as our liberties are 
safe. Among them are these : that every subject may be subjected to 
candid and most free discussion ; that public opinion, enlightened and 
correct, may be turned against any course of evil conduct ; that public 
opinion is, under God, the prime source of security to our laws and 
morals, and that men may be induced by ample discussion, and by the 
voice of conscience and of reason, to abandon any course that is 
erroneous." No. 305. 

Such are the rights and benefits of discussion when directed 
against the seller of rum ; do they lose all their virtue when 
directed against the seller of human flesh ? 

Perhaps your Society revolts at the idea of descending into 
the arena of politics, but if so, how are we to understand the 
following exhortation ? " Let all who regard the virtue, the 
honor, and the patriotism of the country, withhold their suffrages 
from those candidates who offer ardent spirits as a bribe to 
secure their elevation to office." But suppose they offer as a 
bribe to secure their elevation to office, not a glass of brandy 
and water, but a fresh discovered laAV of physical geography, 
precluding all legal restraints on the extension of human bond- 
age — Baltimore platforms, to destroy the liberty of speech, 
of the press, and the pulpit — indictments for high treason, 
offering to the Southern Moloch the blood of Christians, who, in 
the fear of God, refuse when summoned to join in slave-hunts — 
shall we withhold our suffrages ? 

On the whole, sir, I cannot but think that your Society has 
greatly mistaken its duty to God and man, in shrinking from 
pronouncing slavery, as well as gambling and horse-racing, a 
moral evil. Unquestionably, the Society has acted in perfect 
accordance with the general policy of the northern church, both 
Popish and Protestant. That policy is more easily understood 
than vindicated. So intimate are our commercial relations with 
the South, and so dependent are our politicians for the most 
trifling office upon the support of their party by southern votes, 
that to ask them and our merchants to participate in measures 



654 jay's works. 

and opinions offensive to their southern patrons, is like asking 
the favor of them to pluck out a right eye, or cut off a right 
hand. Of course, the pecuniary and party interests of these 
men react on the church and religious societies with which they 
are connected. Hence has grown up a secular and ecclesiastical 
alliance, offensive and defensive, with slavery. But this alliance, 
although undoubtedly embracing many worthy men, is neverthe- 
less in direct antagonism with the gospel of Christ, and has 
consequently led, and is daily leading to most disastrous results. 
It has caused the avowal by men of high position in both church 
and state, of principles utterly subversive of that regard for jus- 
tice and mercy, which is not only one of the peculiar and beautiful 
features of our holy religion, but also, and especially in a De- 
mocracy, one of the strongest safeguards of person and property. 
Some .slave-holders in Congress propose a law, the provisions of 
which may well have been inspired by that evil and malignant 
spirit that goeth about seeking whom he may devour — a law 
openly setting at defiance the established rules of evidence, and 
levelling in the dust all the barriers erected by the common law 
around the personal liberty of the citizen — a law requiring every 
man, at the summons of a miscreant slave-catcher, to assist him 
in his damnable work — a law seeking by fine and imprisonment 
to suppress the impulses of humanity and the gushings of Chris- 
tian sympathy. No sooner is this accursed law proposed, than 
rival politicians contend for the honor of giving it their support ; 
and no sooner is it enacted, than the two great rival parties 
strive to gain votes for their presidential candidates by pledging 
their best endeavors to carry it into execution. Many indi- 
viduals, however, affirm that a law thus requiring them to par- 
ticipate in deeds of cruelty and injustice, is at variance with the 
divine commands. Forthwith we have our public men and our 
party press sneering at the " higher law," and insulting all who 
acknowledge its paramount authority to an act of Congress ; worse 
than all, we have our ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ descanting 
from their pulpits on the reverence due to the " powers that be," 
as ordained of God, and actually urging the duty of obedience 
to one of the most ungodly and execrable enactments of modern 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 655 

legislation. Occasionally it was indeed admitted, that under 
peculiar circumstances, and multiplied conditions, we ought to 
obey God rather than man, but at the same time it was distinctly 
taught, not merely that we should not forcibly resist the Fugitive 
Law, but that the " higher law " did not dispense with our ob- 
ligation to catch slaves. 

In the zeal, the rivalry and the cruelty displayed in seizing 
the hapless and innocent fugitive, and hurrying him back to the 
house of bondage, of mental darkness and bodily suffering, lessons 
of cruelty and injustice have been set by the rich and moral, 
which will not be lost on the needy and profligate. Many of 
our wealthy and influential gentlemen are sowing seeds which 
may yet yield to them and their children most bitter fruit. 

The shocking insensibility of our churches, religious societies 
and religious men, to the iniquities of slavery, of course involves 
them in gross inconsistencies, degrades the character of the gos- 
pel of Christ, and gives a mighty impulse to infidelity. Never 
before, in my opinion, has the American Church been in such 
peril as at present, and from almost every portion of it comes 
up a cry of distress. There is no failure of money. The coun- 
try is rich, and our wealthy men are liberal, and pride and 
ostentation and competition secure the erection of gorgeous and 
expensive churches. But there is a failure of increase of min- 
isters and members. The population is outgrowing the church, 
and the love of many is waxing cold. From men like Tom 
Paine and most of his followers the church has little to fear. 
They hate the gospel because their deeds are evil. Their lives 
are a sufficient antidote to their doctrines. But a new class of 
converts to infidelity is springing up, men whose fearless and 
disinterested fidelity to truth, mercy and justice, extort unwilling 
respect. These men reject the gospel, not because it rebukes 
their vices, but because they are taught by certain of its clergy, 
and the conduct of a multitude of its professors, that it sanctions 
the most horrible cruelty and oppression, allowing the rich and 
powerful forcibly to reduce the poor and helpless to the condi- 
tion of working animals, articles of commerce, and to keep their 
posterity in ignorance and degradation to the end of time. 



656 jay's works. 

Every argument wrested from the Bible in behalf of slavery 
applies to the bondage of white men. Hence the modern pro- 
slavery divinity justifies the ancient villanage and the modern 
serfdom, and would justify their indefinite extension. If it be 
right to hold three millions of human beings as chattels, it is 
equally right to hold hundreds of millions. Hence Christianity, 
if it indeed authorizes this unlimited despotism of the strong 
over the weak — this vast indefinite annihilation of the conjugal 
and parental relations — this total abrogation of the rights of 
conscience, of property, of personal happiness, has surely little 
claim to our reverence, for its tendency to mitigate the sorrows 
and troubles of the present life. Certainly it is not wonderful 
that benevolent, well-meaning men should question divine au- 
thority of a religion sanctioning such tremendous enormities, and 
whose professors recommend the catching of slaves, as a service 
acceptable to the Deity, when required by act of Congress. 

Most orthodox, sir, is the faith professed by the Society ? I 
thank my God and Heavenly Father that he has given me 
grace to embrace with my whole heart and understanding the 
doctrines you denominate evangelical. But it behoves us all to 
remember that a workless faith is a worthless faith. Can we 
refuse obedience to the second of the two great commandments 
on which hang all the law and the prophets, and yet hope to be 
saved for our orthodoxy ? Very properly your Society has not 
confined itself to the simple proclamation of Christ and him 
crucified, but has added practice to faith by assailing sin in its 
various forms, laboring to convince the sinner of his guilt, and 
striving to excite him to repentance and reformation. But the 
sin most rampant in our land — a sin which counts its victims 
by millions, and its perpetrators, abettors and apologists by mil- 
lions more — a sin which taints our holy things, enfeebles our 
churches, corrupts our statesmen, sways our judges, hardens the 
hearts of our people, blunts their sense of mercy and justice, 
and which is crowding the ranks of infidelity — this sin may 
not be mentioned in our fashionable pulpits to " ears polite," nor 
even alluded to in the multifarious publications of the American 
Tract Society. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 657 

And now, sir, what is to be done ? Your response of course 
is, Nothing. You will be at no loss for arguments to show that 
any anti-slavery action on your part will not merely diminish 
your receipts, and thus lessen your ability to do good, but will 
also prevent your tracts and volumes from conveying religious 
truth to the inhabitants of the slave States. The question of 
duty is not to be decided by an estimate of probable receipts. 
Nor is it by any means certain that your policy is the wisest in 
a pecuniary sense, or that one or two tracts condemning Ameri- 
can slavery as a moral evil would prove injurious to your 
treasury. The persistence of the American Board in counte- 
nancing slavery in its mission churches, in deference to the contri- 
butions of its southern patrons, called into existence the present 
flourishing and efficient "American Missionary Association," 
daily growing in strength and public favor. This new institution 
is almost wholly supported by former subscribers to the Board. 
In the last report of the Board, I find the total amount of do- 
nations received the preceding year stated at §299,703.90. Of 
this sum, $10,267.25 came from the slave States and the District 
of Columbia. Now the last report of the Association announces 
the receipt of §31,134.60 for the past year. Nearly every cent 
of this sum is virtually a premium paid by the Board on its 
southern subsci'iptions ! The American Tract Society, if I am 
not much mistaken, is destined to pay a premium of the like 
kind. 

You Avill perhaps say that it is better our southern brethren 
should be saved as slave-holders, breeders, and traders, than not 
at all, and therefore you will not touch the subject of slavery, 
because if you do, you cannot reach them with your tracts, which 
under God might lead to their conversion and salvation. If 
this principle be correct, it is of wide application. The Terri- 
tory of Utah is acquiring a large population, and will soon claim 
admission into the Union. The people are polygamists, but it 
is better they should be saved as such than not at all. Hence 
it becomes the duty of the Society, for fear of offending them, to 
avoid all allusion to the Christian doctrine of marriage, and to 
" move forward on the simple errand that brought the Saviour 
56 



658 jay's works. 

into the world, proclaiming Christ and him crucified," and thus 
rendering the tracts acceptable and useful to our Mormon breth- 
ren. So, also, as the usefulness of the minister of Christ de- 
pends on his message being heard, he ought to preach smooth 
things, lest by offending his people, by telling them unwelcome 
truth, he drive them beyond the sound of the gospel. 

I believe, sir, not only that this reasoning is unsound, but that 
the apprehension on which it is founded is groundless. It is not 
desired by any that your institution should be converted into an 
anti-slavery, any more than into an anti-gambling tract society. 
All that is asked is, that this great and influential Christian 
association should publicly dissent from the impious claim made 
by the advocates of American slavery, that this vast mass of 
accumulated sin and misery is sanctioned by the God of mercy 
and justice, and allowed by the crucified Redeemer — in other 
words, that American slavery should share in the condemnation 
you bestow on " the theatre, the circus and the horse-race." 

"Were you to issue one or two tracts against American slavery 
as a moral evil, will it be -seriously contended that thenceforth 
none of your thousands of publications on other subjects would 
be allowed to cross the frontiers of the slave region ? Recollect, 
sir, that when a human chattel of three years will bring $300 
at auction, and its two parents from $1,500 to $2,000, slaves are 
and must be the possession only of the rich. By the census of 
1840 (I have not the last at hand) there were in the slave 
States, 1,016,307 white males over twenty years of age, and of 
these, — various data assure me it is a very liberal estimate, — 
200,000 were the holders of slaves. And is it possible, sir, that 
of this prodigious majority of non-slaveholders, none will read 
any of your biographies and religious treatises, because they 
may have heard that you have published one or two little tracts 
against a sin of which they are themselves guiltless ? When 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin " is sold and read at the South, is it credible 
that a few slave-holders can exclude all your millions of pages 
from the vast southern region ? Can your agents and colpor- 
teurs be excluded from fifteen States of this Union, because of 
the mighty mass of your publications, twenty or thirty pages 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY- 659 

are directed against the conduct of a few rich men? The 
apprehension that should the Society be faithful to the calls of 
duty its efficiency for good would be impaired, is not, in my 
opinion, consistent with that Chistian faith so forcibly inculcated 
in many of your tracts. For myself, I firmly believe that 
before long the Society will find its present policy productive 
not of strength, but of weakness. That policy has given birth 
to the " American Eeform Tract and Book Society." In a late 
acknowledgment of receipts by this infant institution I observe 
contributions from no less than eight States. 

To me it seems obvious that Christians entertaining such con- 
tradictory views of the divine attributes of the spirit of the 
gospel and of Christian obligation as are involved in the justi- 
fication and condemnation of American slavery, cannot much 
longer act together in sending missionaries to preach, or em- 
ploying the press to inculcate a religion respecting the funda- 
mental moral principles of which the two parties entertain such 
antagonistic opinions. 

It is one of the incidents of our imperfect state, that sincere 
Christians often think they are doing God service, while pursu- 
ing opposite paths, and when of course one or the other must 
tend in a wrong direction. May we accord to others the charity 
we ask for ourselves, and I pray God that those who condemn 
in others the sin of oppressing their brethren, may feel their 
own unworthiness, and remember that they themselves, no less 
than the wretched slave-catcher, need to be washed in that blood 
which alone cleanseth from alt sin. 
I am, reverend sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

William Jay. 



LETTER 

TO LEWIS TAPPAN, ESQ., TREASURER OF THE AMERICAN 
MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION. 



Dear Sir : — I have read with great pain the exposure, in a 
late number of the American Missionary, of the conduct of the 
American Board in relation to the Choctaw and Cherokee In- 
dians. This powerful Society has established missions in these 
two tribes of our Aborigines, who have so far advanced in 
civilization and the adoption of " our institutions " as to hold 
and use certain of their fellow-men as beasts of burden. The 
missionaries sent among these people, instead of teaching them 
the Christian duties of justice and mercy, have virtually in- 
structed them that they might be good Christians without loving 
their neighbors, or doing to others as they would others should 
do unto them. Says a Secretary of the Board, who had visited 
the missions, " It does not seem to have been the aim of the 
brethren (missionaries) to exert any direct influence, either by 
their public or private teachings, upon the system of slavery." 

In the last Report we find the Board extolling their converts 
as saints, and eulogizing the governments established by these 
slave-holding Indians, although tolerating and perpetrating 
atrocities unknown to the despotisms of Europe. 
56* 



G62 jay's works. 

We are told, p. 29, " The Choctaws have a good govern- 
ment. They have a written constitution, with a declaration of 
rights, which embodies the liberty of the press, trial by jury, the 
rights of conscience, proper safeguards of person and property, 
the equality of Christian denominations, and almost every great 
principle of civil and religious freedom." 

Certainly the Board are by no means ultra in their ideas of 
civil and religious freedom, and the rights of conscience. What 
is the religious freedom of their own missionaries ? " If any 
citizen of the United States," says a law of this good govern- 
ment, " acting as A missionary or preacher, or whatever his 
occupation may be, is found to take an active part in favoring 
the principles and notions of the most fatal and destructive 
doctrines of the abolitionists, he shall be compelled to leave the 
nation, and for ever stay out of it." Of course, men of God 
like Wesley, Hopkins, and Edwards, are disqualified from 
preaching the gospel among the Choctaws ; for such men would 
not, like the missionaries of the Board, consent to be gagged on 
the obligation to do justice and love mercy. Not only must 
these missionaries be dumb on the iniquities of slavery, but they 
can remain at their posts only on condition of not violating the 
law of caste, since the statute declares that allowing slaves 
" to sit at table with them shall be ground to convict persons of 
favoring the principles and notions of abolitionism." So, if a 
missionary presumes to eat with a slave, perhaps his spiritual 
son in the gospel, he is to be expelled the nation, and ever 
stay out of it ! and so he is, if he dares to teach a slave to read 
the Bible without the consent of his master ! This good gov- 
ernment provides " proper safeguards of persons and property" 
by enacting that a slave shall possess no property, and that his 
person shall be a vendible article. " Civil freedom " is secured 
by a law which declares that if any free negroes shall return 
into the nation, " they shall be seized and sold to the highest bidder 
for life" By another law, any free negro presuming to enter 
and remain in the nation is to receive one hundred lashes on 
his bare back, and to forfeit all the property he may possess ! 

We are officially assured, p. 32, that " The Cherokees have 



AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION. 663 

AN excellent government : the usual safeguards for person, 
property, the rights of conscience, &c, are provided." This 
same excellent government deprives of all the rights of citizen- 
ship every child of a red man by a black or yellow wife, declares 
void every marriage of the kind, and subjects the parties to 
scourging ! Whoever teaches a slave, or any free negro, not of 
Cherokee blood, to read or write, is to be fined from $100 to 
$500. This exception in favor of negroes of their own blood 
is a natural prejudice which our more civilized slave-holders 
have most effectually conquered. In our Christian slave codes 
we find no favor whatever shown to negroes of Anglo-Saxon 
blood. Free negroes are to be expelled from the nation. 

And now I ask, what is the inference to be drawn from this 
strange, false, blundering, but official eulogy of these Indian 
slave-holding governments ? Why, that the slave codes of our 
Southern States, with all their execrable wickedness, crushing 
in the dust three millions of immortal beings, are perfectly 
compatible with good and excellent government ! Even the 
government of South Carolina, under which more than one half 
of the whole population, men, women, and children, are articles 
of merchandise, and robbed of every civil and religious right, is 
a proper subject of Christian eulogy ! What amount of tyranny, 
cruelty, and wickedness constitutes a bad government, we are 
not informed. Certainly the Board has relieved itself from all 
suspicion of anti-slavery fanaticism, and has proved itself de- 
serving the pecuniary patronage of our " southern brethren." 
A few years since, in consequence of pressure from without, it 
announced to the public that " it can sustain no relation to sla- 
very which implies approbation of the system, and as a Board 
can have no connection or sympathy with it." But, like many 
others, the Board has since " conquered its prejudices." 

It may be asked, Would you abandon these Indians to heath- 
enism because they are slave-holders ? I answer, I would not 
present the gospel to these or any other people in such a form 
as to lead them to believe that Christianity authorized them to 
abandon to heathenism the poor and oppressed among them, by 
subjecting them to enforced ignorance and degradation ; and this 



6G4 jay's works. 

is what the Board is virtually doing. But why prefer preaching 
the gospel under a gag, to preaching it with perfect freedom 
to other Indians who hold no slaves ? Had the missionaries, 
with Christian firmness and fidelity, pointed out to these Indians 
the wickedness of their laws, and the inconsistency of their 
slave-holding with the precepts of Christianity, they would no 
douht have done great good ; and had they been expelled for 
their fidelity, they would have honored Christ by suffering in 
his cause, instead of bringing a reproach on his religion by their 
time-serving policy. In such a case, the Board would have lost 
some, perhaps all, their southern subscribers ; but what amount 
of subscriptions will compensate for the virtual although silent 
abrogation among these Indian converts of the second of the 
two great commandments on which hang all the law and the 
prophets, so far as it affects their obligations to men not colored 
like themselves ? 

I cannot persuade myself that we are justified in the sight of 
God in concealing any divine command or prohibition, for the 
purpose of rendering the gospel more palatable to those to 
whom we present it. I have heretofore occasionally contributed 
to the funds of the American Board, but can do so no more ; 
and I rejoice that in sending you the enclosed check* I have the 
full assurance that I am in no degree strengthening influences 
adverse to the rights, happiness, and religious improvement of 
an afflicted portion of the human family. 

Yours faithfully, 

William Jay. 

For one hundred dollars. 



INDEX. 

Abolitionists, mobs excited against them, 116; infidelity opposed to 
them, 119; charged with treason and incendiarism, 148; ask for 
no violation by Congress of State rights, 162. 

Adams, J. Q., on the influence of slavery, 512. 

Advertisements, atrocious, for fugitive slaves, 484. 

African slave-trade, calumnies against its English opponents, 142 ; 
history of its abolition by Great Britain, 210 ; remarkable resolu- 
tion by six Quakers, 210 ; duplicity of American Government in 
regard to its suppression, 276 ; Virginia, asabreeding State, hoslile 
to the trade, 277; contraband trade long continued, 277 ; eon- 
" nived at by officials, 279 ; efforts of Congress connected with the 
colonization scheme, 282 ; declared to be piracy, but no execu- 
tion under the law, 285 ; treaty of 1814 ; its obligations evaded, 
285, 287; hypocritical negotiation respecting the trade, 287; 
the American flag employed to protect the trade, 292; carried on 
in Liberia, 302 ; history of the constitutional provision respecting 
the trade, 578. 

American slave-trade protected by Congress, 258, 275; its horrors, 
259; its extent, 12, 264 ; loss of life, 272; power of Congress to 
suppress it, 274; invoice of slaves shipped, 429; scene at Wil- 
migton, 478. 

American Board of Foreign Missions, its countenance of slaver}-, and 
the slave code, 661. 

An ti- Slavery Christians, address to, 621. 

Anti-Slavery Society, American, its principles, 125; objects, 139; 
measures, 140; calumnies against its members, 141. 

Archer, Mr., of Virginia, his testimony of the utility of the Colonization 
Society to slavery, 105. 

Bible Society of New Orleans, gives no bibles to slaves, 475. 

Bishops, English, testimony against slavery, 436. 



666 INDEX. 

Black Act of Connecticut, 39. 

Board of Missions, Episcopal, time-serving policy, 438. 

Buxton, Sir F., his protest against the Colonization Society, 123. 

California and New Mexico, address to people of, 490 ; faith of the 
Federal Government violated, for the purpose of introducing 
slavery, 491. 

California, Mr. Clay's plan for admitting into the Union, 553. 

Canaan Academy, destroyed by a pro-slavery mob, 384. 

Canterbury, proceedings against school for colored girls, 384. 

Caste, cruelty and wickeness of, 441, 449, 629. 

Churches, action of in behalf of slavery, 412 ; hold and sell slaves, 473. 

Clay, Henry, letter on his proposed compromise, 553 ; admits the 
Wilmot proviso to be constitutional, 558 ; proposes to enlarge 
Texas, 558 ; to limit the power of Congress over slavery in the 
District of Columbia, 559 ; proposes new facilities for slave-catch- 
ing, 560 ; proposes to guarantee the American slave-trade, 565. 

Clergy promote infidelity by advocating slavery, 435, 486 ; their con- 
duct in Charleston, South Carolina, 475. 

Colonization Society, American, origin and professed object, 15; 
avows no principle or motive, 16; supported from opposite prin- 
ciples and motives, 17; opposed by the free blacks, 22; excuses 
and justifies the oppression of the free blacks, 24 ; their improve- 
ment discouraged, 28 ; number sent to Africa, 30 ; advocated by 
the persecutors of the free blacks, 52 ; influence exerted in behalf 
of slavery, 74 ; expenditures, 79 ; average annual export of manu- 
mitted slaves, less than the daily increase of slaves, 80 ; impossi- 
bility of removing the slave population, 82 ; hostility to emancipa- 
tion, 97, 101, 108; acknowledges the right of property in man, 
99; avows its tendency to strengthen slavery, 106; denounces 
abolition societies, 114; applauded by anti-abolition mob, 118; 
infidelity arrayed in its favor, 119 ; fostered by Federal Govern- 
ment, 300; removal of the slaves would ruin the slave States, 195. 

Congress, violence and immorality of certain members, 514 ; gag rides, 
405. 

Connecticut, disastrous influence of Colonization Society, 31, 36,38; 
inflammatory petition for the exile of the free blacks, 51. 

Constitution of the United States, sinful concessions to slave-holders, 
217; Federal ratio of representation, and its consequences, 218. 

Convention of abolition societies in 1827, 113. 

Crandall, Miss, her school at Canterbury broken up, 34 ; herself im- 
prisoned, 41 ; tried, 42 ; convicted, 50. 



INDEX. 667 

Crummell, Mr., his treatment in the Episcopal church, 442. 

Cuba, intrigues of Federal Government to prevent emancipation, 319. 

Daggett, Judge, his decision against the citizenship of colored per- 
sons examined, 43. 

District of Columbia, action respecting abolition of slavery, 214; hor- 
rible law, 235 ; freemen sold as slaves, to pay their jail fees, 238 ; 
Congress refuses to interfere in any way, 244 ; Grand Jury pre- 
sents the slave-trade, 2G8 ; trade described by Judge Morrill, 268 ; 
denounced by John Randolph, 269 ; horrors of the trade, 269 ; 
its extent, 270; trade licensed, 271. 

Dogs kept for hunting slaves, 419. 

Eliot, Samuel A., letter to him on his apology for voting for the fugi- 
tive law, 571. 

Emancipation, immediate safety of, 167, 186; effect of in the West 
Indies, 187; preferable to gradual, 191; would enrich the slave 
States, 196. 

Factory children, law for their protection and education, 480. 

Federal Government, its action in behalf of slavery, 234; unconstitu- 
tional interference in catching fugitives, 236 ; innocent and free 
men sold as slaves under its authority, 238 ; negotiates for catch- 
ing slaves in Canada and Mexico, 245, 246 ; offers to catch slaves 
for West India masters, 246 ; slaughter of fugitives in Florida , 
248 ; reward paid for their slaughter, 249 ; negotiation for the 
payment of fugitives, and recovery of shipwrecked slaves, 249, 
252; protects the American slave-trade, 268; summary of its 
action in behalf of slavery, 351 ; efforts to subject the press to a 
censorship, 342. See Free people of color. 

Florida territory, atrocious law sanctioned by Congress, 230. 

Forte, Senator, of Mississippi, 612. 

Florida, Avar waged in behalf of slavery, 308. 

Franklin, President of Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 113. 

Freeman, Bishop, his extravagant defence of slavery, 412, 416. 

Free people of color, cruel laws against them, 25 ; often pass for white 
persons, 25 ; oppressed and degraded by the laws of Congress, 
232 ; their citizenship, 46 ; physical reasons urged against it, 50 ; 
persecuted in Virginia to promote colonization, 54 ; their opinion 
of the Colonization Society, 57; atrocious law in Maryland, 93 
their number, 371 ; prejudice against them, 372 ; their disabilities, 
374; base conduct of the Ohio Legislature, 379; excluded from 
army and militia, 381 ; and from all participation in the adminis- 
tion of justice, 382 ; impediments to their education, 383 ; Ohio 



G68 INDEX. 

laws, 385 ; impediments to i-eligious instruction, 386 ; impediments 

to honest industry, 387 ; liability to be converted into slaves, 389 ; 

subject to insult and outrage, 303 ; refused burial in a church 

cemetery, 393; assailed by mobs, 353. 
Free States, the, their responsibilities, 353. 
Fugitive law, if constitutional, still cruel and unjust, 572; history of 

the constitutional provision respecting fugitives, 575; wickedness 

of the law, 585; unconstitutional provisions, 591; attempt to 

enforce the law by making those who resist, traitors, 631. 
Georgia, its Legislature offers a reward for the abduction of a citizen 

of Boston, 523. 
Guadaloupe, history of emancipation in, 177. 
Hayti, hostility of Federal Government, 323. See St. Domingo. 
Hopkins, S. M., strange colonization address by, 103. 
Indians, intercourse with, by Federal Government, made subservient 

to slavery, 303. 
Ives, Bishop, vindicates slavery, 414; his slave catechism, 427; letter 

to, 453. 
Jackson, President, letter to, 364. 
Jay, John, President of New York Abolition Society, 112 ; opposed to 

caste, 147. 
Jewish servitude, 432. 
Jones, Rev. C. C, how treated by the slaves to whom he preached, 470 ; 

his slave catechism, 472. 
Judson, Andrew T., his conduct respecting Canterbury school, 35. 
Laws, slave, 129, 421. 
Liberia, slave-trade, 129; civilization, 64. 
Louisiana planters, instructed by a Congressional document in the 

management of slaves, 231. 
Macauley, Z., his protest against the Colonization Society, 123. 
Maryland appropriates money for colonization, avowedly to strengthen 

slavery, 90; cruel laws against free blacks, 91, 93; base conduct 

of the legislature, 94. 
Mead, Bishop, his prayer in relation to slaves, 100. * 

Mosaic Scriptures, no justification of American slavery, 625. 
Nelson, W., letter to, 553. 
New Haven proceedings, respecting a proposed college for colored 

persons, 31. 
Oxford, Bishop of, introductory remarks to his reproof of the Ameri- 
can church, 409. 



INDEX. 669 

Paulding, J. K., mutilates bis own writings, and denies his own asser- 
tions, vindicates slavery, and is made Secretary of the Navy, 259, 
273. 

Petition, right of, address on, 398 ; effort of Congress to suppress it in 
relation to slavery, 347, 405. 

Pennsylvania, disgraceful conduct of Episcopal church, and its Bishop, 
446 ; Christian conduct of Presbyterian Synod, 450. 

Preston, Senator, of South Carolina, is for hanging abolitionists, 507. 

Rewards offered for the abduction of northern citizens, 523. 

Sierra Leone, immorality of the colony, 73. 

Slave insurrections, 199. 

Slavery, its legal definition, 126, 421 ; testimony of distinguished men 
against it, 144, 436, 456 ; under authority of Federal Government, 
153; atrocities committed, 154; danger from its continuance, 
199, 203 ; safety of its abolition, 167, 186 ; Roman, 416. 

Slave-holders, their lamentations over the poor of England, 479 ; then- 
power to oppress, compared with that of English manufacturers, 
481; their number, 497; public murders committed by them, 
524; control the Federal Government, 545; their future pros- 
pects, 547; the sources of their influence in Congress, 220. 

Slaves, rewards offered for the murder of fugitives, 424 ; owned and 
sold by churches, 4 73 ; their heathenism, 463 ; a spurious Chris- 
tianity offered to them, 460; not sincerely embraced, 4 70 ; num- 
ber, Jan. 1, 1835, at different periods, 11; increase in different 
States, 11 ; ratio of increase of slaves and whites, in the slave 
States, 12; price of, 87; white slaves, 261; no legal marriage, 
130; prevented from learning to read, 134; may not hold re- 
ligious meetings, 135; free persons made slaves by law, 127; 

Slaves, white, in the Barbary States, 609. 

States, slave, increase of population, 49 7, 544 ; education, 501 ; industry 
503; contempt for the laboring classes, 507; religion, 511; 
morals, 513 ; disregard of human life, 516; contempt for constitu- 
tional obligation, 530; bberty of speech, 533; liberty of the press, 
534 ; military weakness, 537. 

St. Domingo, history of emancipation, 171. 

Tappan, Lewis, letter to, respecting American Board of Missions, 661. 

Testimonials against slavery, 144, 436, 456. 

Tyler, John, advocates lawless violence against abolitionists, 518. 

Texas, used by Federal Government, to promote slavery, 332. 

Treason, law of, used by Federal Government to enforce the Fugitive 
Act, 631. 
57 



/ 



G70 INDEX. 

*-* 

Tract Society, American, letter on its silence respecting slavery, and 
its expurgation of anti-slavery sentiments from its reprints, 6-42. 

Veracity, want of it, in the advocates of slavery, 459. 

Virginia, a breeding State for the southern market, 264. 

Union of the States, effect of its dissolution on slavery, 357; conditions 
on which the slave-holders will continue it, 612. 

Webster, Daniel, 584, 501, 602, 610, 613, 616, 626, 633. 

"West Indies, apprenticeship and emancipation, 186; proportion of 
whites to slaves, 18S. 

Wilberforce, his protest against the Colonization Society, 122. 



